OP  THE 
UNIVERSITY 

OF 


THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  GOTHIC 


THE  SUBSTANCE 
OF  GOTHIC 

Six  Lectures  on  the  Development 

of  Architecture  from 

Charlemagne  to 

Henry  Fill 

GIVEN  AT  THE  LOWELL  INSTITUTE,  BOSTON 
IN  NOVEMBER  AND  DECEMBER,  1916 


BY 

RALPH  ADAMS  CRAM 

LITT.D.,  LL.D.,  F.A.I. A.,  F.R.G.S.,  ETC. 

\ 

I 


BOSTON 
MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 

MDCCCCXVII 


67 


Copyright, 
BY  MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 

ytf/7  rights  reserved 


Published  September,   1917 


"         < 


PRINTED    BY 
THE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS,    CAMBRIDGE,    U.S.A. 


MA  440 
C7 


PREFACE 

IN  philosophical  terminology  every  exist- 
ing thing  is  composed  of  substance  and  acci- 
dents, the  first  being  its  essential  quality,  the 
second  its  visible  form.  Accidents  may 
change  while  the  substance  remains  immu- 
table, and  the  substance  may  change  though 
the  accidents  remain  as  before.  Between 
the  cradle  and  the  grave  man  goes  through 
a  constant  process  of  change,  but  that  which 
makes  each  a  definite  individual,  marked 
off  from  all  others  of  his  race  in  unique 
individuality,  remains  a  fixed  and  immu- 
table ego,  however  much  it  may  develop 
and  expand,  or  degenerate  and  fail.  Death 
itself,  which  destroys  the  accidents  of 
earthly  housing,  cannot  touch  the  immortal 
soul  .or  diminish  its  integrity,  though  the 
visible  manifestation  may  differ  as  much 
from  that  of  its  earthly  habitation  as  the 
moth  differs  from  the  chrysalis  or  the  ante- 
cedent worm.  So  in  the  case  of  the  Holy 
Sacrament  of  the  Altar,  the  words  of  con- 
[v] 


M668034 


PREFACE 

secration  and  the  miracle  that  follows 
thereon  have  no  effect  on  the  accidents  of 
form,  shape,  colour,  ponderability,  but  the 
substance  has  been  wholly  changed,  and 
though  to  the  senses  the  wafer  is  still  but 
a  white  disk  of  unleavened  bread,  the  wine 
but  the  fermented  juice  of  the  grape,  the 
one  has  become,  in  substance,  the  very  Body 
of  Christ,  the  other  His  sacred  Blood. 

For  four  centuries  and  more  it  has  been 
the  fashion  to  deny  this  fundamental  differ- 
ence between  substance  and  accidents,  to 
maintain  that  the  accidents  are  in  fact  the 
substance  itself,  and  perilously  to  confuse, 
in  every  category  of  thought  and  action,  the 
essential  "  thing  in  itself,"  with  the  casual 
and  transient  forms  of  its  manifestations. 
The  war  is  at  the  same  time  the  penalty  of 
this  folly  and  its  drastic  corrective.  What- 
ever may  be  its  issue,  one  thing  is  sure,  and 
that  is  its  operation  towards  breaking  all 
things  into  their  component  parts  of  inner 
fact  and  outward  appearance:  its  merciful 
revelation  of  the  illusory  nature  of  the  vis- 
ible forms  of  the  commonly  accepted  dog- 
mas and  axioms  of  four  centuries,  and  of 
the  eternal  verity  of  things  long  hidden 
under  deceitful  masks,  of  the  eternal  falsity 
[vi] 


PREFACE 

of  things  that  had  come  before  us  in  appeal- 
ing and  ingratiating  guise. 

I  have  called  these  lectures,  given  during 
the  winter  of  1916-17  in  the  Lowell  Insti- 
tute course  in  Boston,  "The  Substance  of 
Gothic,"  because  in  them  an  effort  is  made, 
though  briefly  and  superficially,  to  deal 
with  the  development  of  Christian  archi- 
tecture from  Charlemagne  to  Henry  VIII, 
rather  in  relation  to  its  substance  than  its 
accidents;  to  consider  it  as  a  definite  and 
growing  organism  and  as  the  exact  and  un- 
escapable  exponent  of  a  system  of  life  and 
thought  antipodal  to  that  of  the  modernism 
that  began  its  final  dissolution  at  the  begin- 
ning of  August  A.D.  1914,  rather  than  in  the 
light  of  its  accidents  of  form  and  ornament 
and  details  of  structural  design.  Art  was 
always  the  expression  of  the  best  in  any 
people  and  in  any  time,  until  the  last  gen- 
eration when,  if  we  are  to  retain  any  belief 
that  then  there  was  a  definite  "best,"  we 
must  hold  that  it  changed  its  nature  and  be- 
came, if  not  the  manifestation  of  the  worst, 
at  least  that  of  a  very  low  average.  During 
the  period  with  which  I  deal  there  is  no 
question  on  this  point;  between  the  fall  of 
Rome  and  the  triumph  of  the  Renaissance 
[vii] 


PREFACE 

art  of  every  kind  was  a  visible  setting  forth 
of  the  highest  aspirations  and  capacities  of 
men,  and  it  was  even  more  intimately  a  part 
of  personal  and  communal  life  than  ever 
before.  In  every  particular  of  ideal  and  of 
execution  it  follows  precisely  from  life,  and 
is  neither  to  be  estimated  nor  understood 
except  in  its  relation  to  this  life  which  itself 
must  first  be  estimated  and  understood  if  its 
art  is  to  be  apprehended  except  after  a  very 
superficial  fashion. 

When,  early  in  the  last  century,  men 
began  to  think  back  into  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  approach  was  invariably  made  through 
what  philosophy  would  call  the  accidents 
of  a  time  and  a  life  that  had  left  us  no  more 
than  their  superficial  records.  The  admira- 
tion that  grew  so  rapidly  was  not  for  the 
substance  of  Medievalism,  for  scholastic  or 
sacramental  philosophy,  for  Catholic  theol- 
ogy, for  communal  organization  on  a  human 
scale,  it  was  rather  for  the  outward  forms 
of  the  several  Christian  arts,  for  the  cere- 
monial and  the  devotional  material  of  re- 
ligion, for  the  insubstantial  residuum  of  an 
ultra-mystical  philosophy,  for  the  poetry 
and  charm  and  pageantry  of  the  Mediaeval 
decadence.  It  has  needed  this  war  to  drive 


PREFACE 

men  back  and  beyond  the  form  to  the  matter 
itself,  and  to  give  them  some  realization  of 
the  singular  force  and  potency  and  right- 
eousness of  an  epoch  which  begins  now  to 
show  itself  as  the  best  man  has  ever  created, 
and  one  as  well  that  contains  within  itself 
the  solution  of  our  manifold  and  tragical 
difficulties,  and  is  in  fact  the  model  whereon 
we  must  rebuild  the  fabric  of  a  destroyed 
culture  and  civilization. 

The  earliest  estimate,  like  the  earliest  ad- 
miration for  the  rediscovered  Gothic  art, 
was  based  on  these  superficial  forms.  For 
many  years  Gothic  architecture  was  re- 
garded, demonstrated  and  restored  solely 
on  the  basis  of  its  recorded  forms,  the 
centring  of  its  arches,  the  contours  of  its 
mouldings,  the  nature  and  design  of  its  or- 
nament. Commentators  on  Gothic  art  pro- 
duced one  silly  theory  after  another,  praised 
inordinately  its  secondary  qualities,  and 
generally  dealt  with  it  after  a  purely  em- 
pirical fashion.  Amateur  architects  and 
builders  copied  its  details  (or  satirized 
them)  in  wood  and  plaster,  and  the  re- 
sults were  deplorable.  "  Strawberry  Hill 
Gothic,"  "  Carpenter's  Gothic,"  "  Church- 
warden Gothic,"  "Victorian  Gothic"  (all 
[ix] 


PREFACE 

effective  titles  applied  by  the  scoffers)  suf- 
ficiently express  the  real  quality  of  this 
catastrophic  product  which  bore  no  earthly 
relationship  to  Gothic  itself  so  far  as  its 
substance  is  concerned,  and  only  the  most 
distant  resemblance  to  its  forms. 

Following  the  "  enlightened  amateur " 
came  the  scholar  and  the  archaeologist,  and 
recently  the  effort  has  insistently  been  made 
to  probe  deeper  and  to  determine  the  nature 
and  content  of  the  style  on  a  more  scientific 
basis.  The  unique  and  supreme  organic 
system  of  Mediaeval  architecture  at  its  best, 
was  discovered  and  analyzed,  and  this,  ex- 
pressed with  great  accuracy  and  after  the 
most  approved  "  scientific  method,"  was 
brought  forward  as  the  essence  and  the  cri- 
terion of  Gothic.  According  to  the  pro- 
tagonists of  this  cult  "  Gothic  "  architecture 
is  that  alone  wherein  the  groined,  ribbed, 
pointed  vault  exists ;  where  this  controls  the 
remainder  of  the  organism,  and  where  all 
things  develop  from,  or  are  made  subservi- 
ent to,  this  particular  scheme  of  construc- 
tion. Conversely  it  follows,  and  is  so  stated, 
that  any  building  where  vaults  of  this  na- 
ture do  not  exist,  or  were  not  contemplated, 
cannot  be  called  Gothic.  The  consequences 
[x] 


PREFACE 

are  both  complicated  and  (one  would  sup- 
pose) embarrassing.  A  thirteenth-century 
cathedral  in  some  town  in  France  is  Gothic, 
but  an  adjoining  dwelling,  built  at  the  same 
time,  and  perhaps  by  some  of  the  cathedral 
workmen,  is  not.  Westminster  Abbey  is 
Gothic,  but  Lincoln  and  Exeter  are  not,  for 
the  vault  system  does  not  logically  deter- 
mine the  other  details.  The  choir  of  Can- 
terbury is  Gothic,  but  a  parish  church 
constructed  at  the  same  time  is  not,  if  it 
happens  to  have  a  wooden  roof,  or,  if 
vaulted,  its  pier  sections  are  too  large,  and 
its  walls  are  thick  enough  to  take  the  vault 
thrusts  without  flying  buttresses. 

Of  course  in  a  way  it  is  a  quarrel  over 
a  word.  If  the  world  wishes  to  adopt  the 
name  "  Gothic  "  and  use  it  in  the  narrowly 
restricted  sense  indicated  above,  very  well, 
only  some  other  name  must  be  discovered 
to  describe  the  great  and  comprehensive 
impulse  and  product  of  which  "  Gothic,"  in 
that  sense,  will  be  only  a  sub-species.  Now 
this  word  has  been  in  universal  use  for  five 
hundred  years  to  indicate  not  a  detail  (al- 
beit the  most  important)  of  construction, 
but  the  whole  body  of  art  produced  during 
the  preceding  five  centuries  to  express  the 

[xi] 


PREFACE 

concrete  civilization  of  Catholic  Europe. 
Deliberately  to  reverse  the  connotation  of 
the  word,  giving  it  an  entirely  new  and 
very  restricted  meaning,  seems  to  me  illogi- 
cal, unreasonable  and  even  puerile.  It 
smacks  of  the  meticulous  pedantry  of  nine- 
teenth-century Teutonism  and  is  on  a  par 
with  the  philological  testing  of  religious 
doctrine,  the  psychological  determination 
of  philosophical  postulates,  and  the  solution 
of  the -problem  of  life  by  the  methods  of  a 
mechanistic  physiological  determinism.  If 
the  organic  system  of  Gothic  construction 
deserves  (as  it  does)  a  special  nomencla- 
ture, let  us  find  or  invent  the  right  word, 
but  for  the  spirit  and  impulse,  the  great 
body  of  artistic  production,  and  specifically 
the  unique  architecture  of  the  Christian 
Middle  Ages,  let  us  retain  the  venerable 
word  "  Gothic,"  for  all  the  world  knows 
what  this  indicates,  even  though  it  has  a 
nebulous  idea  of  what  it  means. 

Within  the  space  of  six  lectures  it  is,  of 
course,  quite  impossible  to  do  more  than 
indicate  some  few  of  the  salient  points  in 
the  system  I  have  tried  to  establish  as  the 
one  that  must  be  developed  if  the  architec- 
ture of  Medievalism  is  to  be  appreciated 
[xii] 


PREFACE 

at  its  full  value.  All  I  have  tried  to  do  is 
to  stimulate  interest  in  the  great  epoch  of 
Christian  civilization  and  to  deal,  however 
superficially,  with  its  architectural  expres- 
sion as  a  supremely  organic  and  living  thing. 
If  I  have  succeeded  in  the  slightest  degree, 
then  it  is  possible  for  those  who  wish  to 
follow  the  subject  further  to  find  in  many 
volumes  of  scholarly  and  authoritative  char- 
acter the  careful  working  out  of  the  various 
qualities  in  Mediaeval  ism  I  have  endeav- 
oured to  epitomize.  The  last  decade  is 
notable  for  the  books  that  have  been  written 
along  the  lines  of  sympathetic,  construc- 
tive and  stimulating  interpretation  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  At  the  head  of  the  list  I 
should  place  without  question  "Mont-Saint- 
Michel  and  Chartres,"  by  Henry  Adams 
(Hough ton,  Mifflin  Company),  and  "The 
Mediaeval  Mind,"  by  Henry  Osborne  Tay- 
lor (Macmillan  Company).  The  two 
books  supplement  each  other  and  should 
be  read  together;  so  used,  profound  scholar- 
ship and  an  almost  miraculous  vision  meet 
together  and  re-create  Mediaevalism  before 
our  eyes.  "  The  Thirteenth,  Greatest  of 
Centuries,"  by  Dr.  Walsh  (Catholic  Sum- 
mer School  Press),  is  also  an  authoritative 

[  xiii  ] 


PREFACE 

compendium  of  quite  priceless  information, 
while  "  Reformation  and  Renaissance,"  by 
J.  M.  Stone  (E.  P.  Button  &  Company), 
and  "  The  Catholic  Church,  the  Renais- 
sance and  Protestantism,"  by  Alfred  Bau- 
drillart  (Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  & 
Co.),  deal  definitely  with  the  transition 
from  the  Middle  Ages  to  modernism. 
The  great  introductory  essay  in  Montalem- 
bert's  "  Monks  of  the  West "  still  remains 
the  authoritative  pronouncement  on  monas- 
ticism.  Political  theory  and  practice  are 
clearly  outlined  in  "  Political  Theories  of 
the  Middle  Ages,"  by  Dr.  Otto  Gierke 
(Cambridge  University  Press),  and  in  "A 
History  of  Mediaeval  Political  Theory,"  by 
R.  W.  and  A.  J.  Carlyle  (G.  P.  Putnam's 
Sons).  For  a  clear  and  lucid  statement  of 
Mediaeval  philosophy,  in  concise  form,  I 
know  no  better  books  than  the  two  first 
named,  by  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Taylor. 
Of  course  the  works  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas 
are  now  fully  translated  and  St.  Bernard  is 
generally  available.  Unfortunately  Hugh 
of  St.  Victor  still  awaits  his  translator  and 
his  commentator.  There  are  many  works 
on  the  guilds  and  the  industrial  and  eco- 
nomic organization  of  the  Middle  Ages, 

[xiv] 


PREFACE 

e.g.  "  Industrial  and  Commercial  History 
of  England,"  by  Thorold  Rogers,  "  Village 
Communities  in  the  East  and  West,"  by  Sir 
Henry  Maine,  "  The  English  Village  Com- 
munity," by  F.  Seebohm,  and  "  English 
Guilds,"  published  by  the  Early  English 
Text  Society.  Two  recent  books,  "  The 
Servile  State,"  by  Hilaire  Belloc.  (F.  N. 
Foulis),  and  "The  Real  Democracy,"  by 
Mann,  Sievers  and  Cox  (Longmans,  Green 
&  Co.),  draw  a  striking  contrast  between 
the  Mediaeval  and  modern  industrial  sys- 
tems, and  as  well  between  the  guilds  and 
contemporary  trades  unionism. 

Of  the  books  dealing  primarily  with 
architecture  I  should  place  first  Arthur 
Kingsley  Porter's  "Lombard  Architecture" 
(Yale  University  Press)  and  his  "  Me- 
diaeval Architecture"  (Baker  &  Taylor 
Company) .  Professor  Moore's  "  Gothic 
Architecture"  (Macmillan  &  Company) 
is  direct,  concise  and  sympathetic,  though 
I  must  dissent  in  toto  from  his  limitation  of 
the  title  "  Gothic  "  to  the  masonry-vaulted 
structures  of  France.  "A  History  of  Gothic 
Art  in  England,"  by  Edward  S.  Prior 
(George  Bell  &  Sons),  "  Gothic  Architec- 
ture in  England"  (B.  T.  Batsford)  and 

[xv] 


PREFACE 

"  Introduction  to  English  Church  Architec- 
ture "  (The  Oxford  University  Press),  both 
by  Francis  Bond,  deal  admirably  with 
English  Gothic;  and  Professor  Lethaby's 
"Westminster  Abbey  and  the  King's  Crafts- 
men "  (E.  P.  Dutton)  gives  a  vivid  idea  of 
the  methods  of  building  during  the  Middle 
Ages.  . 

Cardinal  Gasquet  has  written  brilliantly 
on  the  later  Middle  Ages  and  the  begin- 
nings of  the  Reformation,  particularly  in 
his  "  Henry  VIII  and  the  English  Mon- 
asteries "  (John  C.  Nimmo),  "  The  Eve  of 
the  Reformation"  (Putnam  &  Company), 
and  "The  Old  English  Bible  and  Other 
Essays"  (George  Bell  &  Son).  Should 
there  be  those  who  care  to  read  more  that 
I  have  written  along  somewhat  similar  lines, 
I  would  suggest  "  The  Ruined  Abbeys  of 
Great  Britain  "  (James  Pott) ,  "  The  Gothic 
Quest"  (Doubleday,  Page  &  Company), 
"The  Ministry  of  Art"  (Houghton,  Mif- 
flin  Company),  and  "Heart  of  Europe" 
(Charles  Scribner's  Sons). 

Finally,    for  gaining  something   of   the 

wonderful  spirit  of  Medievalism  at  first 

hand,  there  remain  the  epics  and  verses  of 

the  period  in  their  original  form,  "  Morte 

[xvi] 


PREFACE 

d'Arthur,"  by  Sir  Thomas  Mallory,  first, 
of  course,  with  "  The  High  History  of  the 
Holy  Grail,"  the  latter  admirably  trans- 
lated by  Sebastian  Evans  (Dent  &  Com- 
pany), and  the  "  Song  of  Roland."  "  Ro- 
mance Vision  and  Satire  "  is  a  collection  of 
translations  into  modern  English  by  Miss 
Jessie  Weston  (Hough ton,  Mifflin  Com- 
pany) of  much  of  the  earliest  English  verse, 
including  the  marvellous  "  Pearl,"  which 
is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  poems  in  the 
world.  As  translations  they  are  far  from 
exact,  but  the  original  spirit  is  marvellously 
preserved.  Probably  the  best  way  to  get 
at  "  Pearl  "  is  to  read  the  Golancz  text, 
with  Miss  Weston's  version  as  a  "crib"; 
the  Golancz  translation  is  quite  impossible. 
Of  course  in  the  end  Dante  remains  the 
great  Mediaeval  synthesis,  the  "  Divine 
Comedy "  standing  alone  in  power  and 
beauty  and  exaltation  —  the  very  Middle 
Ages  made  visible. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  this  list 
is  no  more  exhaustive  than  it  is  erudite.  I 
have  purposely  chosen  only  those  books  that 
are  non-technical,  easily  available,  and  writ- 
ten in  English.  Medievalism  is  the  study 
of  a  lifetime,  for  it  is  that  great  cycle  of 
[  xvif  ] 


PREFACE 

five  centuries  wherein  Christianity  created 
for  itself  a  world  as  nearly  as  possible  made 
in  its  own  image,  a  world  that  in  spite  of 
the  wars  and  the  desecrations,  the  ignorance 
and  the  barbarism  and  the  "  restorations " 
of  modernism  has  left  us  monuments  and 
records  and  traditions  of  a  power  and  beauty 
and  nobility  without  parallel  in  history. 
For  three  years  the  slow  destruction  of  five 
centuries  has  been  accelerated  to  a  degree 
that  passes  belief,  and  the  ruin  of  great  art 
is  symbolical  of  the  equal  ruin  that  is 
wrought  in  the  last  and  lingering  vestiges 
of  an  almost  forgotten  Christian  civiliza- 
tion. If  the  wide  desolation  of  war  proves 
but  the  clearing  of  the  field  for  the  return 
of  the  spirit  in  life,  and  the  mode  of  life, 
that  once  had  issue  in  the  Gothic  art  of  a 
Catholic  Europe,  the  price  exacted  from 
the  world  will  not  be  too  great  to  pay  for 
so  glorious  a  restoration. 

RALPH   ADAMS   CRAM. 

WHITEHALL,  SUDBURY, 
MASSACHUSETTS, 
4th  August,  1917. 


[  xviii  ] 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  PAGE 

I.    THE  QUARRY  OF  ANTIQUITY     ...  i 

II.    THE  AGE  OF   CHARLEMAGNE  ....  33 

III.  THE  GREAT  AWAKENING 62 

IV.  THE  EPOCH  OF  TRANSITION    .    .    -.  94 
V.    THE  MEDIAEVAL  SYNTHESIS     ....  127 

VI.    THE    DECADENCE    AND    THE    NEW 

PAGANISM 158 


THE   SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 


The  Substance  of  Gothic 

LECTURE   I 
THE   QUARRY   OF   ANTIQUITY 

WE  are  called  upon  at  this  time  to  re- 
estimate  our  philosophies,  to  test  by  newly 
revealed  criteria  those  concrete  dogmas 
and  formulae  accepted  so  generally  and  for 
so  long  a  time  as  axiomatic:  to  interpret 
anew,  and  in  the  light  of  an  impossible 
catastrophe,  phenomena  that  had  taken  their 
places  in  a  scheme  of  things  that  is  for  us 
no  longer  definitive  or  even  convincing. 
Two  years  have  cleft  history  in  halves,  and 
once  more,  as  so  often  in  the  past,  a  long 
building-up  of  linked  and  sequent  events 
stops  suddenly  short,  cut  by  a  colossal  sword. 
A  new  order  begins,  the  nature  of  which 
we  cannot  definitely  determine;  a  new 
order  subject  to  progressive  revelation,  and 
explicit  only  in  one  thing,  its  difference  in 
every  great  and  every  little  detail  from  all 
that  went  before. 

[i] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

These  sudden  severances  are  sufficiently 
familiar  to  us  in  the  past:  so  Hellenic 
civilization  was  cut  short  that  Rome  might 
have  her  day:  so  Rome  fell  and  Mediter- 
ranean culture  yielded  to  the  barbarism  of 
the  North :  so  again  this,  when  it  had  made 
of  itself  the  high  expression  of  Christian- 
ity, gave  way  in  its  turn  to  a  new  thing,  the 
consistent,  logical,  and  well-rounded  epi- 
sode we  have  called  Modern  Civilization, 
working  out  its  destiny  through  the  three 
phases  of  Renaissance,  Reformation,  and 
Revolution  that  it  might  achieve  at  last  its 
fruition  through  intellectualism,  secular- 
ism, and  materialism,  and  in  its  turn  break 
down  and  disappear,  to  give  place  to  that 
new  era  the  nature  of  which  is  still  in  the 
balance,  while  a  world  in  arms  hammers 
out  its  unknown  future  on  bloody  anvils 
and  in  the  shadow  of  unimaginable  conflict. 

For  us,  looking  backward  over  the  clearly 
defined  perspective  of  the  past,  it  is  easy  to 
trace  the  great  clefts  in  history  as  they  cut 
like  giant  crevasses  the  rolling  plateau  of 
life,  but  when  a  bottomless  chasm  suddenly 
splits  itself  through  the  midst  of  our  own 
normal  existence,  without  warning  and  in 
violation  of  all  personal  experience,  it  is  as 
[2] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

though  on  some  summer  morning  the  field 
at  the  bottom  of  the  garden  disappeared, 
with  a  crash  of  rending  worlds,  in  an  un- 
fathomable pit,  raw  and  horrible,  that  rent 
itself  with  the  speed  of  lightning  through 
well-known  meadows  and  hills  and  forests, 
leaving  on  the  one  side  the  shaken  garden 
on  the  black  edge  of  catastrophe,  on  the 
other  all  the  once  familiar  world  of  cities 
and  of  men,  no  longer  approachable,  no 
longer  even  assured  in  its  existence. 

The  war  the  whole  world  said  could 
never  come,  but  the  war  that  came  never- 
theless, to  the  confusion  of  human  assur- 
ance, means  many  things,  most  of  which 
are  still  unrevealed,  but  two  are  sufficiently 
clear  and  they  are,  first:  that  the  world  after 
the  war  will  be,  for  good  or  ill,  an  entirely 
new  world;  and  second:  that  every  pre- 
conceived idea  of  the  man  of  the  nineteenth 
century  must  now  submit  itself  to  the  proc- 
ess of  re-estimation.  All  that  was  essen- 
tially of  the  last  epoch,  i.e.  from  1414  to 
1914,  in  religion,  philosophy,  and  the  con- 
duct of  life,  must  subject  itself  to  a  new 
testing,  for  the  blast  of  war  is  purging  away 
the  dross,  and  the  alchemy  of  a  world's 
agony  is  transmuting  base  metal  into  refined 
[3] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

gold.  Once  more  we  are  driven  back  from 
a  world  of  phenomena  to  the  everlasting 
verities.  If  by  the  grace  of  God  (and  our 
own  humility)  we  are  able  to  lay  hold  of 
them,  we  have  won  for  ourselves  a  new 
Middle  Ages,  a  new  Renaissance ;  and  what 
now  seems  the  peril  of  a  new  Dark  Ages 
passes  away. 

In  its  essential  contributions  to  religion, 
philosophy,  and  the  conduct  of  life  the  last 
era  of  five  centuries  was,  I  believe,  proceed- 
ing on  lines  that  were  in  general  malefic 
rather  than  beneficent,  for  it  failed  ignobly 
in  the  chief  object  of  life,  which  is  the  de- 
velopment of  character.  Its  contributions 
to  material  wealth,  to  intellectual  com- 
petence, to  mastery  of  the  forces  of  nature, 
to  ease,  luxury,  manners,  to  physical  well- 
being  and  scientific  achievement,  were  un- 
exampled in  their  magnitude,  but  in  the 
concrete  appreciation  of  these  things  (in 
themselves  so  full  of  potency),  the  failure 
was  almost  complete,  and  in  the  end  the 
breakdown  of  character  has  been  ominous 
and  significant.  It  is  true,  however,  that 
the  by-products  of  the  process  were  often 
of  great  value  and  these  may  in  time  be 
made  operative  to  admirable  ends. 
[4] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

In  its  estimate  of  the  past,  its  interpreta- 
tion of  history,  the  conclusions  were  as 
erroneous  as  the  method  was  ill-judged,  and 
the  result  was  an  entirely  false  standard  of 
comparative  values  and  an  almost  complete 
negativing  of  the  constructive  powers  for 
good  inherent  in  the  recorded  annals  of 
human  experience  and  adventure.  Finally 
it  was  an  age  that  was  responsible  for  the 
breakdown  and  almost  complete  disappear- 
ance of  art  as  a  vital  force  in  society,  a  con- 
dition that,  we  must  always  remember,  is 
unique  in  history.  However  low  an  art,  or 
all  the  arts,  may  have  fallen  at  certain 
rhythmical  intervals  in  the  past,  there  was 
always  an  irreducible  minimum  left,  a 
nucleus  which,  as  culture  returned  and 
civilization  began  again,  served  as  the  little 
leaven  that  in  the  end  lightened  the  whole 
lump  and  made  possible  once  more  a  new 
epoch  of  artistic  achievement. 

I  wish  to  speak  to  you  during  this  course 
of  lectures  of  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  the 
arts  as  .it  ran  its  course  from  the  time  of  its 
recovery  in  the  west  under  Charlemagne 
to  its  transformation  at  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance,  the  last  episode  occurring  in 
England  at  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry 
[5] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

VIII  —  a  period  of  seven  centuries  which 
exactly  covers  the  era  of  specifically  Chris- 
tian civilization  in  Europe.  I  wish  to  do 
this  partly  because  architecture  is  the  most 
human  and  general  of  all  the  arts  and  one 
which  exerts  its  beneficent  influence  most 
widely;  partly  because  it  was  the  first  of 
the  arts  to  break  down  and  disappear  in  the 
nineteenth  century,  maintaining  itself  since 
then  only  as  a  wistful  and  yet  ardent  effort 
at  premeditated  recovery;  partly  because 
the  nineteenth  century  efforts  at  a  critical 
and  philosophical  estimate  of  this  particu- 
larly significant  era  of  architecture  seem  to 
me  peculiarly  disastrous,  in  that  they  have 
resulted  either  in  very  erroneous  conclusions 
as  to  the  art  itself  and  its  position  relative 
to  the  other  phases  of  the  same  art,  or  in 
a  method  of  estimate  that  eliminated  all 
the  inner  and  essential  qualities  that  gave 
the  architecture  of  this  time  its  unique 
claim  on  a  lasting  admiration,  and  its  pe- 
culiar significance  for  us  of  this  day  and 
generation. 

Two  things  may  happen  to  art:  trans- 
formation in  form  and  transformation  in 
content.    The  first  is  a  more  or  less  regular 
process  operating,  as  does  all  human  de- 
[6] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

velopment,  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual, 
not  by  steady  progression,  or  by  spiral  ascen- 
sion, as  was  once  pleasantly  feigned  by  the 
evolutionists  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but 
by  sudden  and  almost  instantaneous  leaps 
both  forward  and  backward,  with  long  fol- 
lowing periods  either  of  slow  progression 
or  of  equally  slow  degeneration.  "  Catas- 
trophic "  is  a  word  that  may  be  used  in 
opposition  to  the  old  and  no  longer  credible 
"  evolutionary,"  to  express  the  sudden  and 
even  violent  changes  in  direction  and  varia- 
tions in  impulsive  force  that,  acting  in 
obedience  to  a  mysterious  stimulus,  the 
source  of  which  science  cannot  determine, 
initiate  those  changes  in  species  and  those 
rhythmical  eras  in  progress  and  retrogres- 
sion that  determine  human  life  while  they 
baffle  all  mechanistic  systems  of  thought 
and  become  the  nemesis  of  "  the  scientific 
method."  These  violent  actions  and  reac- 
tions are  very  evident  in  all  the  arts  and  they 
determine  those  stylistic  changes  that  give  it 
so  much  of  its  intense  vitality  and  make  it 
so  exactly  an  expression  of  life  itself.  Such 
was  the  revolution  effected  in  fifty  years 
when  the  Romanesque  of  the  Normans  gave 
place  to  the  Gothic  of  the  Franks,  or  that 
[7] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

other  of  an  equal  period  of  time,  though 
varying  in  date  as  between  one  race  and  an- 
other, whereby  Mediaeval  art  became  the 
art  of  the  Renaissance.  Transformation  in 
content  is  a  different  thing  altogether:  it 
cannot  be  called  periodic  for  it  has  hap- 
pened only  once,  and  that  so  recently  that 
the  event  is  almost  within  our  own  memory. 
However  great  the  transformations  in 
form  that  have  occurred  from  time  to  time 
in  the  past,  they  have  never  altered  the  con- 
tent of  art  itself,  which  has  always  remained 
a  perfectly  definite  thing,  an  inalienable 
heritage  of  man,  working  within  certain 
clearly  circumscribed  lines,  in  accordance 
with  an  unchanging  method,  toward  an  un- 
varying end.  It  has  presupposed  the  exist- 
ence of  beauty,  relative  at  first  but  absolute 
in  fact,  and  susceptible  always,  in  its  abso- 
lute form,  of  approximation  and,  though 
rarely,  of  achievement.  This  beauty  —  of 
form,  line,  colour,  chiaroscuro,  tone,  mel- 
ody, harmony,  rhythm  —  has  been  desirable 
in  itself,  and  because  of  its  power  of  sensu- 
ous delight,  but  even  more  as  a  means  of 
expressing  symbolically,  and  therefore  sac- 
ramentally,  those  spiritual  adventures,  ex- 
periences, and  achievements  which  tran- 
[8] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

scend  the  sphere  of  the  physical  and  the 
intellectual,  and  therefore  can  be  expressed 
only  after  a  symbolical  or  sacramental 
fashion.  In  other  words  beauty,  which  is 
the  vehicle  of  art,  may  be,  and  has  been, 
used  for  the  expression  for  man,  and  from 
one  to  another,  of  those  highest  things  of 
life  and  experience,  which  are,  by  their 
very  nature,  unsusceptible  of  other  mani- 
festation. 

Now  this  beauty  is  not,  either  as  beauty 
or  as  a  mode  of  expression,  a  matter  of  per- 
sonal idiosyncrasy.  Specific  individuals, 
sometimes  called  artists,  precipitate  it,  give 
it  form,  infuse  it  with  an  element  of  their 
own  personality,  and  shape  it  in  the  con- 
crete through  power  of  craftsmanship,  in 
them  more  highly  developed  than  amongst 
their  fellows.  This  does  not  make  the  art 
their  own:  the  beauty  with  which  they  deal 
is  not  the  emanation  of  their  own  idiosyn- 
crasies, it  is  as  universal  and  immutable  as 
right  and  wrong  or  the  law  of  gravitation. 
The  artist  has  a  certain  sensitiveness  to 
beauty  just  as  others  are  sensitive  to  phil- 
osophical, mathematical,  or  mechanical 
stimuli,  therefore  he  can  isolate  this 
beauty  better  than  another.  The  artist  is 
[9] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

a  trained,  exquisite,  and  competent  crafts- 
man in  stone,  wood,  marble,  pigments, 
musical  notes,  what  you  will ;  working  with 
ardour  and  devotion  in  accordance  with  the 
slowly  developed  laws  of  his  particular 
craft,  therefore  able  to  do  what  others  can- 
not do.  The  artist  contributes  an  element 
of  his  own  personality,  so  bringing  his  art 
down  to  earth,  making  it  human,  and  vital- 
izing it  with  personality;  giving  it  distinc- 
tion, in  other  words.  Yet  all  this  does  not 
make  the  art  his  own,  for  unless  there  is  be- 
hind him  a  communal  self-consciousness, 
unless  the  air  is  quick  with  impulses  and 
desires  of  the  whole  people  eager  for  the 
expression  of  their  own  spiritual  experi- 
ences and  emotions,  or  at  the  least  for  the 
visible  manifestation  of  that  beauty  in  which 
they  themselves  can  find  pleasure  and  con- 
tent, then  the  art  of  the  individual,  how- 
ever great  he  may  be,  is  a  fond  thing,  vainly 
imagined,  and  no  part  of  any  life  save  only 
his  own.  Until  the  last  hundred  years,  or 
even  less,  the  artist  was  a  mouthpiece  and  a 
servant,  though  increasingly  laggard  in  his 
service.  He  is  now  a  rebel  and  an  outlaw, 
and  though  he  himself  may  be  a  greater 
artist  than  his  forebears,  his  place  in  society 
[10] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

is  fundamentally  different.  Under  these 
conditions  he  cannot  prolong  the  succession, 
and  becomes  the  last  of  his  race. 

This  change  from  universal  art  to  pe- 
culiar art  has  actually  taken  place  within 
the  century,  and  transformation  in  content 
has  been  effected,  for  the  first  time  in  his- 
tory. Within  twenty  years  the  inevitable 
result  has  shown  itself,  and  the  personal, 
idiosyncratic  art  which,  through  a  number 
of  very  great  geniuses  at  the  end  of  the  last 
century,  deceived  us  by  its  competence  into 
the  belief  that  art  had  been  born  again  (or 
was  still  continuing)  has  passed,  and  we 
are  now  confronted  by  certain  anomalous 
products,  in  all  the  arts,  which  are  not 
art  at  all  but  the  mouthings  of  anarchy, 
the  pathological  reactions  of  a  spiritual 
degeneration  now  in  the  last  stages  of  its 
progress. 

It  is  significant  that  this  phenomenon 
should  synchronize  exactly  with  the  reveal- 
ing breakdown  of  what  is  known  as  modern 
civilization.  This  civilization  proceeded  to 
its  supreme  achievement  through  four  cen- 
turies of  cumulative  development  and  ever 
accelerating  momentum,  cresting  at  last  in 
the  second  decade  of  the  twentieth  century 
[ii] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

only  to  break  as  a  wave  breaks,  and  fall  in 
destroying  dissolution.  During  the  same 
period  the  fate  of  art  was  being  accom- 
plished and  it  is  now  involved  in  the  same 
ruin.  That  this  is  not  a  final  estate  we  must 
all  be  persuaded.  Nothing  exactly  like  it 
has  ever  happened  before,  it  is  true,  but 
nothing  even  remotely  like  modern  civiliza- 
tion has  ever  happened  before.  From  time 
to  time  under  the  racking  shock  of  dis- 
appointment, disillusionment,  and  vanity 
wounded  to  death;  under  the  staggering 
horrors  of  the  piling  of  a  Pelion  of  human 
agony  on  the  Ossa  of  human  infamy,  we 
doubt  if  this  is  not  indeed  the  end  of  the 
world,  the  preliminary  skirmish  of  Arma- 
geddon. For  those  at  least  who  hold  to 
their  faith  in  Christianity  this  natural  fear 
breaks  down  under  a  resurgent  faith  and 
they  are  able  to  look  beyond  catastrophe  to 
a  consequent  regeneration,  so  believing  that 
once  more  the  sane  sequence  of  life  will  be 
re-established  after  the  great  readjustment 
has  been  accomplished. 

This    readjustment,    which    will    affect 
every  category  of  life,  involves  a  new  scru- 
tiny of  all  the  things  man  has  done  in  the 
past  and  a  new  estimating  of  the  motive 
[12] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

forces  behind  these  actions.  In  the  red 
light  of  war,  the  last  era  of  human  activity, 
the  "  Modern  Era  "  shows  itself  in  many 
ways  as  a  "  sport,"  a  development  along 
lines  not  implied  by  the  pre-Renaissance 
world  but  striking  off  at  an  unexpected  and 
not  wholly  advantageous  angle.  It  is  now 
confronted  by  the  blunt  "  No  Thorough- 
fare "  of  an  annihilating  war,  and  of  neces- 
sity there  must  be  a  certain  measure  of  re- 
turn toward  the  point  where  the  wrong  path 
was  chosen.  In  the  abnormal  development 
of  the  peculiar  elements  of  modern  civiliza- 
tion several  essential  matters,  essential  to 
sane  and  righteous  life,  have  been  lost  sight 
of,  and  their  determination  and  recovery 
form  the  first  task  of  the  world  that  follows 
the  War.  Immediately,  therefore,  we  must 
expect,  and  ensure,  a  new  scrutinizing  of 
history,  largely  for  the  purpose  of  discern- 
ing just  what  the  vital  impulses  were  that 
lay  behind  those  epochs  of  civilization  more 
successful  than  our  own,  in  order  that  these 
may  be  made  operative  again  toward  that 
great  regeneration  that  must  follow  war,  if 
we  are  not  to  sink  back  into  a  period  of 
Dark  Ages  differing  only  from  those  that 
followed  the  fall  of  Rome  in  the  greater 
[13] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

blackness  of  their  shame  and  the  increased 
N   profundity  of  their  oblivion. 

This  is  my  excuse  for  taking  up  with  you 
the  question  of  the  historical  development 
of  one  of  the  arts,  and  at  a  time  when  all 
of  us  have  little  heart  for  the  amenities  of 
life.  But  art  is  not  an  amenity  of  life:  that 
is  just  the  point.  Modern  civilization  has 
made  it  that,  and  in  this  also  modern  civi- 
lization is  wrong.  It  is  an  integral  part  of 
life  itself,  as  indispensable  as  religion  or 
ethics  or  philosophy.  It  is  the  heritage  of 
all,  not  the  appanage  of  the  few,  though  it 
has  become  the  latter  through  the  operation 
of  the  false  principles  inherent  in  our 
scheme  of  existence.  For  more  than  four 
centuries  the  process  of  degeneration  has 
been  working  itself  out,  though  it  was  only 
during  the  nineteenth  century  that  each  of 
the  arts  finally  succumbed,  architecture 
going  first,  music  and  poetry  coming  last. 
But  for  the  War  the  case  would  have  ap- 
peared hopeless  and  we  could  have  con- 
fronted nothing  but  a  life  from  which  art 
in  all  its  forms  was  definitely  excluded. 
Now  the  War  gives  us  not  only  a  new  hope, 
but  a  new  impulse ;  a  hope  that  art  in  all  its 
myriad  forms  may  come  again,  an  impulse 
[14] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

to  go  back  and  learn  more,  and  along  dif- 
ferent lines,  of  the  art  of  the  past  and  of 
what  made  it  what  it  was,  in  order  that  we 
may  contribute  something  along  these  lines 
to  the  new  civilization  that  must  arduously 
be  built  up  on  the  ruins  of  a  great  failure. 

Art,  in  its  many  forms,  is  the  most  reli- 
able history  of  a  time,  largely  because  it 
does  not  deal  with  concrete  facts  which, 
so  far  as  absolute  and  final  truth  is  con- 
cerned, are  of  the  nature  of  statistics,  pro- 
verbially said  to  be  of  the  third  and  highest 
degree  of  lies.  The  modern  historical 
method  deals  with  facts,  which  are  further 
emphasized  in  their  error  by  the  applica- 
tion of  a  mechanistic  psychology,  and  the 
result  is  about  as  illuminating  as  is  the 
method  of  the  "  higher  criticism "  when 
applied  to  the  Scriptures,  or  that  of  Morelli 
in  the  case  of  attributions  in  painting.  If 
you  would  know  what  sort  of  men  and 
women  they  were  who  lived  at  any  time,  - 
how  they  thought  and  felt,  and  why,  —  and 
if  you  would  approach  some  sound  critical 
estimate  of  the  life  they  made,  the  world  of 
thought  and  feeling  in  which  they  lived, 
go  back  to  their  art;  to  their  architecture, 
painting,  and  sculpture,  their  poetry,  drama, 
[15] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

and  music,  their  industrial  arts,  their  litur- 
gies, and  their  ceremonial.  To  create  a 
fabulous  epoch  out  of  chronicles,  dates,  con- 
crete acts,  and  documents,  all  fused  in  the 
alembic  of  a  personal  and  arbitrary  psychol- 
ogy, and  then  to  test  the  art  of  that  epoch 
by  this  curious  philtre,  is  folly:  far  more 
sensible  is  it  to  interpret  and  co-ordinate 
these  same  events  in  the  light  of  the  art  that 
is  in  itself  the  clear  and  naive  revelation  of 
the  soul  of  any  time. 

Behind  our  own  era,  which  as  I  have 
said  begins  with  the  first  stirrings  of  the 
Renaissance,  lies  the  epoch  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  For  four  hundred  years  it  was  mis- 
judged and  misrepresented  by  historians 
and  forgotten  by  the  world  at  large.  Three 
quarters  of  a  century  ago  it  was  rediscov- 
ered, and  the  romanticism  of  the  early  nine- 
teenth century  in  France  and  England,  the 
Catholic  revival  in  religion,  the  Gothic 
restoration  in  architecture  were  its  first  vis- 
ible manifestations.  Naturally  they  were 
all  more  or  less  tinged  by  superficiality,  by 
a  pale  copying  of  externals,  and  naturally 
also  they  synchronized  with  the  triumphant 
achievements  of  that  modern  civilization 
against  which  they  were  a  protest.  For 
[16] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

both  reasons  the  first  movement  broke  down, 
and  the  elapsed  years  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury saw  its  submergence  under  an  univer- 
sally victorious  modernism.  Now  this  vic- 
tory shows  itself  as  no  other  than  ignomini- 
ous defeat,  and  war  sweeps  the  field  clear 
for  new  things.  Can  we,  therefore,  attempt 
a  new  method,  and  as  the  echoes  of  annihila- 
tion die  away  over  the  wide  ruin  of  a  dead 
era,  try  once  more  to  get  nearer  the  secret 
of  this  great  epoch  of  Christian  civilization 
and  recover  something  of  its  potency  for 
ourselves? 

Much  of  what  we  need  now,  and  shall 
need  increasingly  when  rebuilding  takes  the 
place  of  destruction,  lies  there,  —  more  than 
we  suspect,  or,  for  the  moment,  should  wel- 
come. Confining  ourselves,  therefore,  to 
the  single  art  of  architecture,  let  us  see  if 
we  can  discover  what  this  paramount  art  of 
the  Middle  Ages  really  was,  what  it  grew 
from,  and  by  the  operation  of  what  forces, 
—  what  it  has  for  us  today,  not  only  in  the 
re-creation  and  rehabilitation  of  our  own 
dead  art  of  architecture,  but  what  it  can 
show  us  of  the  methods  and  accomplish- 
ment of  a  great  and  very  sane  era  of  cul- 
ture and  civilization. 

[17] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

When,  fat  with  her  wealth,  her  power, 
and  her  pride  of  life,  Rome  fell  before  the 
barbarian  invaders,  the  destinies  of  Europe 
were  changed  forever.  The  Mediterra- 
nean races  gave  place  to  those  from  the 
Baltic,  the  south  yielded  to  the  north, 
civil  power  to  ecclesiastical,  secular  Chris- 
tianity to  monastic,  patristic  theology  to  the 
personal  religion  of  the  people;  pagan  and 
Alexandrian  philosophy  was  for  the  time 
extinguished,  and  nationalism  was  merged 
in  tribalism.  An  "  act  of  oblivion  "  was 
passed  by  the  dominant  and  savage  north; 
for  three  centuries  progressive  forgetful- 
ness  held  dominion  while  a  new  race  of 
men  hammered  out  the  rough  foundations 
of  a  new  world  and  the  shaking  successors  of 
St.  Peter  sat  in  a  desolated  Rome,  the  only 
centre  of  approximate  order  in  a  whirlpool 
of  anarchy. 

It  is  as  hard  to  comprehend  the  complete 
extinguishing  of  classical  civilization  in  the 
fifth  century,  as  it  would  be  for  us  today 
to  imagine  the  total  obliteration  of  all  the 
achievements  of  the  last  four  centuries,  yet 
the  real  and  the  supposititious  cases  are  the 
same,  and  what  has  once  happened  may 
happen  again.  In  hardly  more  than  an 
[18] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

hundred  years  a  State  coterminous  with  the 
world,  proud,  wealthy,  invincible  in  the 
field,  boasting  a  superficial  culture,  insolent 
in  its  assurance,  magnificent  in  all  its  out- 
ward forms  of  art  and  pageantry,  broke 
down,  crumbled  and  utterly  disappeared. 
Rome  declared  her  ability  to  extend  her 
own  culture,  with  her  civil  and  military 
dominion,  to  all  the  barbarous  peoples  of 
three  continents,  and  in  the  end  found  that, 
instead,  she  had  sunk  to  the  level  of  those 
she  would  succour,  who,  themselves  the  vic- 
tors, entered  in  and  took  possession.  From 
all  sides,  east,  west,  north,  south,  savage 
hordes  crept  over  the  marble  villas  and 
pleasant  gardens  and  fertile  farms  of  Brit- 
ain, Gaul,  the  Rhineland,  Africa,  Syria, 
leaving  only  ruin  and  desolation.  Crept  on 
the  great  summer  resorts  with  their  terraced 
palaces  and  their  luxurious  and  profligate 
life,  the  resorts  that  made  the  mountain 
valleys  and  delicate  rivers  and  Mediter- 
ranean headlands  and  beaches  pleasure 
haunts  of  infinite  delight.  One  by  one  they 
vanished  in  flame  and  sack,  until  the  forests 
returned,  the  sand  washed  higher,  obliterat- 
ing even  the  calcined  fragments  of  an  archi- 
tecture such  as  the  world  had  never  seen 
[19] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

before.  Alaric,  Genseric,  Attila,  Ricimer, 
one  hardy  and  scornful  leader  after  another, 
laid  siege  to  Rome,  captured  and  sacked  it, 
and  returned  with  booty  that  weighed  down 
the  thousands  of  horses  and  the  tens  of 
thousands  of  warriors.  At  last  the  wolves 
prowled  unmolested  amongst  the  temples 
and  basilicas,  the  baths  and  fora  and  pal- 
aces, of  what  had  once  been  Imperial  Rome, 
while  pestilence  and  famine  decimated  all 
Italy,  and  deep  woods  and  poisonous 
marshes  took  the  place  of  crowded  cities 
and  broad  acres  of  farms  and  gardens. 

Even, memory  of  what  had  been  was  lost, 
at  least  for  the  west.  On  the  Bosporus  a 
New  Rome  preserved  a  lingering  tradition 
that  died  away  before  a  subtle  and  encroach- 
ing Orientalism  and  a  degenerate  but  de- 
lectable Hellenism.  In  the  Benedictine 
monasteries,  now  fast  rising  as  fortresses  of 
refuge  in  the  midst  of  catastrophe,  manu- 
scripts from  devastated  libraries  were  gath- 
ered together  and  preserved,  but  the  spirit 
that  alone  possessed  any  element  of  vitality 
was  now  anti-pagan  and  ascetic,  and  the 
monks  only  guarded  what  they  would  not 
use.  And  as  the  last  memory  of  a  classical 
past  had  disappeared,  so  for  several  cen- 
[20] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

turies  the  new  power  —  northern,  Chris- 
tian and  monastic  —  showed  no  signs  of 
creating  anything  to  take  its  place.  Cul- 
ture, even  of  the  most  rudimentary  kind, 
was  non-existent:  there  was  no  art  of  any 
sort,  neither  architecture,  painting,  sculp- 
ture, poetry,  music,  drama,  nor  even  the 
minor  arts  of  the  craftsman.  Education 
was  practically  unknown,  save  the  bare 
rudiments  that  the  priest  must  have,  and 
of  learning  there  was  no  vestige  in  all 
Europe. 

It  was  a  good  clean  blood,  however, 
that  had  entered  the  veins  of  Europe  in 
place  of  the  poisoned  and  vitiated  blood  of 
the  south,  and  health  conquered  disease. 
Clovis,  who  had  defeated  the  degenerate 
Romans  at  the  Battle  of  Soissons  in  486  and 
accepted  Christianity  ten  years  later,  had 
established  a  new  State  in  Gaul,  Catholic, 
in  opposition  to  the  Arian  heresies  of  the 
other  converted  northern  tribes.  St.  Bene- 
dict in  the  year  529  had  founded  his  Order 
that  was  to  act  as  the  spiritual  stimulus  of 
Europe  for  a  thousand  years.  In  587  Spain 
had  been  won  over  from  Arianism  to  Ca- 
tholicism, in  590  St.  Gregory  became  Pope 
and  wrenched  the  Church  from  the  mire  of 
[21] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

the  great  degeneration,  and  in  597  sent  St. 
Augustine  to  begin  the  work  of  regenera- 
tion in  England.  It  was  a  good  beginning, 
but  the  power  of  dissolution  was  greater 
than  that  of  recovery;  outside  the  monas- 
teries culture  and  decency  disappeared, 
Mohammedanism  rushed  in  like  a  flood 
against  the  narrowing  frontiers  of  Chris- 
tianity, Spain  was  lost  and  the  future  seemed 
to  hold  nothing  but  ruin  and  an  ending  of 
all  things. 

With  the  year  732  the  real  recovery  be- 
gan, for  it  was  then,  at  the  Battle  of  Tours, 
that  Charles  Martel  —  the  Hammer  that 
not  only  smote  back  the  Mohammedan  in- 
vasion but  forged  the  mighty  fabric  of  the 
House  of  the  Carolings  —  halted  the  Moors 
in  their  invasion  of  Europe  that  already 
had  swept  nearly  to  the  gates  of  Paris. 
Thirty-five  years  later  Charlemagne  began 
the  rebuilding  of  European  civilization, 
crushing  the  degenerate  Lombards  in  Italy, 
and  the  savage  Saxons  and  Bavarians;  de- 
stroying the  Avars  in  Austria,  winning  back 
northern  Spain,  and  giving  a  measure  of 
unity  to  a  distracted  and  dislocated  Europe. 

It  is  the  fashion  to  attribute  to  Ch'arle- 
magne  himself  the  credit  for  the  sudden  if 
[22] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

short  recovery  of  art  and  learning  and  cul- 
ture of  the  last  half  of  the  eighth  century, 
but  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  and  he  were 
linked  results  of  the  same  slow  process  of 
regeneration  that  began  with  St.  Benedict 
in  his  cave  at  Subiaco.  He  was  of  course 
the  visible  agency  of  the  culminating 
achievement,  for  God  always  works  through 
individual  men  and  women  in  the  develop- 
ment of  His  Will  as  this  is  exhibited  on 
earth,  and  it  is  only  just  that  for  all  time 
the  first  fruits  of  Christian  society,  organ- 
ized and  operative,  should  bear  his  name. 

We  must  realize,  however,  that  already  a 
great  process  of  development  had  begun, 
the  end  of  which  was  to  be  a  definitely 
Christian  system  of  life,  when  every  phase 
of  thought  and  action  should  be  interpene- 
trated by  a  specifically  Catholic  force.  The 
entire  space  of  time  from  Theodoric  to 
Otho  the  Great,  exactly  five  centuries,  is 
given  over  to  the  struggles  of  a  new  spirit 
to  achieve  the  mastery,  with  its  partial  suc- 
cess under  Charlemagne,  which  was  imme- 
diately followed  by  complete  failure,  as 
this  in  its  turn  was  succeeded  by  a  more 
vigorous  effort  that  was  quickly  crowned 
by  success. 

[23] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

There  is  something  almost  mysterious  in 
the  way  in  which  the  idea  of  secular  world- 
Empire  grew  under  the  Caesars,  simultane- 
ously with  the  idea  of  a  world-Church. 
This  is  the  great  contest  of  the  first  five 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  determined 
at  last  against  the  imperial  State,  but  not  as 
yet  in  favour  of  the  imperial  Church.  As 
Gregorovius  says,  the  Empire  stood  for  slav- 
ery and  despotism,  with  complete  poverty 
in  creative  ideas  in  civilization.  All  that 
tended  to  raise  the  intellectual  spirit  to  the 
higher  regions  of  thought  was  either  non- 
existent, or  acclimatized  from  other  lands. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  idea  of  the  spiritual 
world-State  was  developing  simultaneously, 
and  Rome,  the  Eternal  City,  no  sooner  lost 
all  claim  to  the  title,  as  a  material  force, 
than  she  was  taken  over  by  the  new  spiritual 
force,  regenerated,  made  again  of  universal 
dominion,  and  her  claim  to  the  epithet 
"  Eternal  "  vindicated  anew.  When  the 
Empire  fell  the  Church  was  already  an  uni- 
versal organization  under  the  supreme  di- 
rection of  the  Bishop  of  Rome  who  was 
acknowledged  to  be  the  Vicar  of  God  on 
Earth,  and  the  imperium  passed  to  her,  of 
right,  though  the  process  of  transfer  took 
[24] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

some    time    to    accomplish  —  the    epoch 
known  in  history  as  the  Dark  Ages. 

After  their  first  successful  invasions,  the 
Goths  maintained  a  remote  civil  dominion 
for  Rome,  or  rather  for  the  old  Imperial 
Roman  idea,  but  after  their  defeat  by  the 
emissaries  of  Byzantium,  the  last  vestiges 
of  secular  supremacy  died  away  and  its 
impotent  traditions  maintained  only  a  pale 
continuance  at  Ravenna.  It  is  during  this 
time  that  the  Church  made  herself  the 
dominant  influence  in  Europe,  first  by  the 
conversion  of  the  Lombards  and  the  other 
heretical  tribes,  second  by  her  successful 
warfare  against  the  Idea  of  the  East  as  this 
was  embodied  in  the  exarchs.  Through 
the  first  she  exterminated  the  Arian  and 
other  heresies,  united  Christianity  and  made 
it  Catholic  over  all  Europe.  Through  the 
second  she  beat  back  the  peril  of  gov- 
ernmental absolutism  and  made  possible 
the  Christian  social  system,  which  was 
feudalism. 

During  the  great  warfare  that  achieved 
such  vast  victories  there  was  little  possibil- 
ity of  a  creative  culture  that  would  have 
expression  in  the  form  of  art  of  any  kind; 
the  issues  were  too  colossal,  the  crises  too 
[25] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

acute.  Not  until  the  time  of  Charlemagne 
could  society  begin  to  reap  the  benefits  of 
its  great  enfranchisement,  but  then  the 
ground  had  been  won  and  held,  though  in- 
securely, and  the  artistic  results  inevitably 
followed. 

What  these  results  were,  in  architectural 
form,  I  shall  try  to  show  in  my  next  lecture ; 
in  the  meantime  I  wish  to  place  before  you 
the  material  from  which  these  results  were 
obtained. 

Neither  architecture,  nor  any  other  art, 
is  the  product  of  individual  genius.  There 
is  no  such  thing,  properly  speaking,  as  a 
"  new "  style,  and  there  never  can  be  a 
"  new  "  art  cut  off  from  the  succession  of 
the  past.  Perhaps  this  is  why  the  sup- 
posititious art  of  today  —  art  nouveau,  cub- 
ist,  impressionist,  imagist,  what  you  will 
—  is  not  art  at  all,  but  an  unpleasant  fiction 
of  auto-suggestion.  The  art  of  the  Caro- 
lingian  era  was  genuine  art,  as  far  as  it 
went,  and  it  was  based  on  certain  remains 
of  the  antecedent  epoch  and  worked  out 
largely  by  means  of  enduring  principles 
and  traditions  inherited  from  the  same  time. 
The  strictly  pagan  remains  of  Rome,  south- 
ern France,  Treves  were  completely  ig- 
[26] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

nored,  though  in  the  eighth  century  they 
were  ten  times  as  numerous  as  now.  In- 
stead recourse  was  had  to  pagan  architec- 
ture as  it  had  been  adapted  by  Christianity, 
and  of  this  there  was  also  far  more  than  has 
been  preserved  to  our  own  time. 

This  "  Early  Christian  Architecture " 
had  its  habitat  in  four  widely  severed  places, 
but  all  of  them  available  to  Europe  through 
merchants,  travellers,  and  pilgrims  going  to 
or  sent  from  these  then  flourishing  centres. 
Rome,  Ravenna,  Constantinople,  and  Syria 
were,  in  varying  degrees,  centres  of  wealth 
and  activity  in  the  Dark  Ages,  and  even  then 
intercourse  amongst  them  was  constant,  and 
of  a  magnitude  we  can  hardly  appreciate. 
In  Rome  were  the  great  Constantinian 
basilicas,  —  St.  Peter's,  St.  John  Lateran, 
Sta.  Maria  Maggiore,  San  Clemente,  Sta. 
Agnese,  and  scores  of  others  of  lesser  mag- 
nitude, all  couched  in  much  the  same  style, 
all  magnificent,  and  touched  with  the  mys- 
terious splendour  of  the  recognized  centre 
of  spiritual  authority  and  of  civil  dominion. 
Always  simple  in  plan,  though  varying  con- 
siderably in  design  (some  being  of  the  most 
archaic  basilican  type,  others  with  lofty 
galleries  over  the  aisles,  long  ranges  of 
[27] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

clerestory  windows,  and  added  accessories 
of  chapels  and  baptisteries),  they  all  were 
rich  with  antique  columns  of  precious 
marbles,  sheathing  of  porphyry  and  ala- 
baster, golden  and  azure  mosaics,  and  altars 
and  ambos  and  thrones  of  the  most  sumptu- 
ous design  and  the  most  rare  materials.  To 
them  men  turned  naturally  first  of  all,  and 
then  to  Constantinople,  where  Justinian  had 
but  recently  immortalized  himself  as  the 
most  princely  builder  of  all  time,  through 
his  sequence  of  great  domed  temples,  as 
incredible  in  their  magnificence  as  they 
were  masterly  in  their  original  scheme  of 
construction.  Hagia  Sophia  was  of  course 
the  everlasting  wonder  of  all  Christendom, 
but  there  were  countless  other  smaller 
churches,  such  as  St.  Irene  and  Holy  Apos- 
tles, and  in  Salonika,  Trebizond,  Bethle- 
hem, Jerusalem,  as  well.  Numbers  of  these 
have  wholly  disappeared  under  Turkish 
conquest,  and  we  can  only  guess  at  their 
nature,  but  there  were  many  in  the  eighth 
century,  well  known  to  the  people  of  the 
time,  of  which  we  know  only  by  contem- 
porary records. 

In  Syria,  which  is  now  for  us  only  a  bar- 
ren desert,  there  were  the  great  cities  of  a 
[28] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

once  sumptuous  civilization,  and  it  is  here, 
half  hidden  under  sand  and  debris,  that 
much  has  recently  been  found  by  Professor 
Butler  of  Princeton  that  gives  another  aspect 
to  Christian  archaeology.  Here  were  three 
great  schools  of  architecture,  counting  from 
north  to  south,  which  seem  to  contain  more 
of  the  elements  of  Mediaeval  art  than  are 
to  be  found  elsewhere.  It  is  from  Syria, 
apparently,  that  Diocletian  drew  the  build- 
ers of  his  amazing  palace  at  Spalato,  and 
that  Justinian  found  those  who  were  to  de- 
velop for  him  the  magnificent  building  of 
his  reign.  In  the  south  were  the  curious 
structures,  wholly  of  stone,  that  de  Vogue 
has  so  carefully  studied,  with  their  piers 
instead  of  columns,  their  close-set  transverse 
nave  and  aisle  arches  carrying  roofs  of  stone 
slabs,  and  their  arch  abutments  precisely 
like  those  we  find  centuries  later  at  Sant' 
Ambrogio,  Milan.  Here  also  we  find,  as 
at  Zor-ah,  the  primitive  domical  churches, 
polygonal  in  plan,  set  within  a  square,  and 
with  absidioles  in  the  angles,  that  are  the 
prototypes  of  San  Vitale  and  Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle.  In  the  middle  school,  the  closely 
built  piers  of  the  south  give  place  to  very 
wide  spacing,  with  broad  round  arches  and 
[29] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

low  clerestories  of  narrow  windows.  The 
aisles  are  vaulted  in  stone,  the  roofs  are  of 
wood.  Here  also  we  discover  the  norm  of 
the  great  flanking  towers  of  the  west  ends 
of  Norman  and  Gothic  abbeys  and  cathe- 
drals, though  at  first  they  are  low  and  rise 
but  little  above  the  roof  levels.  The  com- 
plete parallel  that  exists  between  the 
exterior  architectural  treatment  of  these 
churches  and  that  of  the  twelfth  century 
Romanesque  work  of  southern  France,  is 
startling.  Columns  are  used  on  the  apses 
and  chapels  precisely  as  they  are  employed 
there,  and  with  the  arched  corbel  table  form 
the  prototype  of  the  pilaster  strips  and 
cornices  of  Lombardy  and  the  Rhine.  In 
the  north  columns,  once  more,  are  gener- 
ally used  as  supports;  there  are  three  apses, 
instead  of  one,  and  these,  curiously  enough, 
are  often  square  in  plan,  even  the  main 
sanctuary,  like  the  early  British  church  that 
fixed  the  permanent  type  of  square-ended 
plan  in  England.  Another  singular  innova- 
tion is  the  lifting  of  the  side  chapels  into 
towers  of  several  stories  framing  in  the, 
apse;  a  device  which  appears  later  at 
Como  and  goes  thence  to  the  Rhineland, 
where  it  becomes  a  characteristic  and  en- 
[30] 


THE    QUARRY    OF    ANTIQUITY 

tirely  local  feature.  In  this  northern  school 
the  feeling  is  predominantly  Greek,  in  form 
as  well  as  in  decoration.  The  carved  orna- 
ment is  crisp  and  clean,  and  merges  rapidly 
into  the  intricate  and  brilliant  patterning 
of  Byzantine  art. 

Finally,  we  have  Ravenna  with  its  work 
of  Theodoric  and  the  Byzantine  exarchs; 
the  tomb  of  Galla  Placidia,  San  Vitale, 
the  two  churches  of  Sant'  Apollinare,  the 
baptistery,  and  probably  other  monuments 
now  destroyed.  Both  plan  types  are  here, 
basilican  and  domical,  together  with  the 
little  tomb  church,  which  is  cruciform, 
with  a  rudimentary  central  tower.  Less 
magisterial  than  the  Roman  basilicas,  less 
magnificent  than  the  gold  and  marble  won- 
ders of  Byzantium,  the  work  is  more  akin 
to  the  temper  of  the  north  and  west,  and 
more  adaptable  because  of  its  scale.  Such 
a  plan  as  that  of  San  Vitale  would  stimulate 
any  builder  to  creative  action,  as  it  did; 
and  the  old  school  of  craftsmen  seemed  to 
last  longer  here  than  anywhere  else,  except 
perhaps  amongst  the  Comacini.  At  Pom- 
posa  and  Bagnacavallo,  near  by,  and  at 
Grado  and  Parenzo  in  Istria,  are  other  ex- 
amples of  Ravennesque  work;  and  alto- 
[31] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF   GOTHIC 

gether  the  city  of  the  exarchs  and  of  the 
great  northern  barbarian,  Theodoric,  who 
proved  himself  so  sane  and  beneficent  a 
ruler,  offered  in  the  eighth  century  a  series 
of  models  that  could  only  serve  as  a  strong 
incentive  the  moment  a  real,  if  transient, 
vitality  appeared  in  society  itself. 


[32] 


LECTURE   II 
THE  AGE   OF   CHARLEMAGNE 

WITH  the  destruction  of  the  magnificent 
governmental  system  of  Rome,  all  sem- 
blance of  civil  order  and  authority  was  lost. 
Sense  of  nationality  was  non-existent  as  yet, 
racial  lines  had  not  asserted  themselves,  and 
by  a  perfectly  natural  process  the  feudal 
system  grew  up  around  the  strong  men,  and 
with  the  cordial  approval  of  the  Church. 
In  principle,  and  even  more  in  its  work- 
ing out,  it  proved  a  most  admirable  and 
efficient  scheme  of  political  and  social 
organization.  From  an  economic  stand- 
point it  was  more  successful  and  far  more 
just  and  beneficent  than  the  industrial  slav- 
ery that  preceded  it,  or  the  capitalistic 
regime  that  has  taken  its  place.  This  was 
particularly  true  after  it  had  fully  devel- 
oped the  guild  system  which,  during  the 
golden  era  of  the  central  Middle  Ages, 
guaranteed  freedom,  justice,  and  honour- 
able status  for  industry  of  every  kind, 
[33] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Politically  the  results  were  equally  good. 
Every  man  owed  service  and  a  certain 
amount  of  tribute  in  kind  to  the  over-lord 
next  above  him,  who  in  his  turn  owed  sim- 
ilar service  and  truage,  with  the  others  of 
his  class,  to  the  baron  or  count  or  bishop  or 
abbot  in  the  next  rank  of  the  hierarchy,  and 
so  on  up  to  the  sovereign  authority  over  the 
tribe  or  race  or  other  governmental  unit. 
On  his  own  part  the  over-lord  was  in  theory 
bound  to  defend  the  life  and  land  of  his 
vassals  and  to  see  that  justice  was  done 
amongst  them.  The  result  was  that  from 
the  unit  of  the  family  up  through  the  com- 
mune, the  county,  the  kingdom,  and  —  from 
Charlemagne  on,  as  a  general  thing  —  the 
Empire,  every  man  was  an  integral  part  of 
a  small,  manageable  and  personal  group,  not 
as  now,  a  negligible  point  in  a  vast  and  ab- 
stract proposition  where  all  personal  rela- 
tionship, personal  duty,  personal  obligation 
are  impossible. 

Out  of  this  orderly  organization  grew  the 
sense  of  honour,  and  of  faithful  personal 
service  on  the  one  hand,  of  generosity  and 
protection  on  the  other,  and  we  can  under- 
stand nothing  of  Medievalism  unless  we 
give  just  regard  to  this  almost  fundamental 
[34] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

element  in  its  constitution.  Of  course  I  am 
stating  here  only  an  ideal,  for  there  were 
innumerable  cases  of  failure,  on  the  one 
side  or  the  other,  to  live  up  to  this  ideal; 
cases  of  rebellion  and  treachery;  of  oppres- 
sion, cruelty,  and  dishonour,  but  there  is 
good  evidence  to  show  that  the  ideal  was 
then  as  nearly  approached  in  the  majority 
of  instances,  as,  we  will  say,  the  ideals  of 
democracy  have  been  approached  in  the 
nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries. 

I  am  sensible  of  the  fact  that  some  of  you 
may  be  very  much  shocked  at  hearing  me 
praise  feudalism,  and  call  it,  as  I  most  cer- 
tainly do,  the  nearest  recorded  approach  to 
the  Christian  commonwealth.  If  you  in- 
deed are  stirred  by  this  sentiment  then  that 
is  what  I  mean  when  I  refer  to  the  misin- 
terpretation of  history  that  was  one  of  the 
salient  characteristics  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  number  of  things  that  are  called 
"  Mediaeval,"  particularly  by  political  ora- 
tors, educational  experts,  and  other  imper- 
fectly educated  people,  is  astounding.  It  is 
a  general  term  of  modern,  —  as  "  Gothic  " 
was  a  general  term  of  Renaissance,  —  con- 
tempt, and  it  is  employed  with  indifferent 
discretion.  Absolutism  in  government,  re- 
[35] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

ligious  persecution,  the  Inquisition,  untidi- 
ness, conservatism,  are  all  cheerfully  de- 
nominated "  Mediaeval,"  in  calm  disregard 
of  the  fact  that  they  are  all  inventions  or 
practices  of  the  Renaissance,  or  even,  some 
of  them,  of  more  modern  times.  In  the 
same  way,  feudalism,  which  certainly  was 
Mediaeval,  is  used  as  a  synonym  for  all  that 
is  dark,  barbarous  and  oppressive. 

A  word  of  warning  should  be  given  those 
who,  very  properly,  turn  to  available  con- 
temporary documents,  particularly  those  of 
a  legal  nature,  to  obtain  a  first-hand  idea  of 
feudalism  as  an  actuality.  The  legal  theo- 
ries of  feudalism  were  very  lightly  regarded 
in  actual  practice,  for  there  it  was  never  a 
question  of  what  the  law  was,  or  might  be 
made,  but  what  had  been  established  by 
ancient  custom  and  universal  acceptance. 
The  insanity  of  law-making  and  law-tinker- 
ing which  has  been  and  is  the  curse  of  mod- 
ern society  is  hardly  three  centuries  old  and 
was  then  unknown.  Government  is  not  now 
a  system  of  laws  but  of  decrees,  differing 
little  in  motive  from  the  irresponsible  edicts 
of  absolutism,  and  the  result  is  general  con- 
tempt and  a  flagrant  willingness  to  evade 
the  provisions  of  these  decrees  by  every 
[36] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

possible  means.  Then  the  full  force  of  uni- 
versal custom  was  supreme;  laws  were  this 
custom  proved  and  codified,  and  as  a  result 
Law  had  a  force  that  made  it  almost  impre- 
scriptible, while  it  represented  not  fluctuant 
opinion  but  the  matured  results  of  the  in- 
terplay of  influences  both  high  and  low. 

A  case  in  point  is  the  shocking  "  droit  de 
seigneur,"  so  often  referred  to  by  super- 
ficial students  of  Medievalism.  There  is 
actually  no  evidence  to  prove  that  this  was 
a  recognized  custom  or  even  anything  but 
the  most  sporadic  offence,  no  more  repre- 
sentative of  feudalism  than  the  alleged 
"  blue  laws "  are  representative  of  democ- 
racy. In  the  Middle  Ages  all  relationship 
was  personal  and  direct,  and  of  course  much 
depended  on  the  personality  of  the  over- 
lord, but  higher  than  he  was  Custom,  the 
unwritten  and  immemorial  law  of  society; 
and  this  custom  was  far  less  easily  flouted 
or  evaded  than  are  modern  laws  that  are 
too  well  known  in  the  methods  of  their  in- 
ception and  their  enforcement  to  command 
respect  or  ensure  their  obedient  acceptance 
by  those  who  would  evade  their  provisions. 

I  dare  say  the  later  feudalism,  as  it  ap- 
peared in  the  last  days  of  the  Middle  Ages 
[37] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

in  Germany,  and  in  other  parts  of  Europe 
in  the  earlier  Renaissance,  was  dark,  bar- 
barous, and  oppressive,  but  I  am  speaking 
of  it  as  it  was  in  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and 
thirteenth  centuries,  while  it  was  the  basis 
of  Christian  society,  and  then  it  certainly 
was  quite  the  reverse.  It  came  nearer  a  real 
democracy  than  any  other  of  the  manifold 
and  optimistic  experiments  of  man,  for  it 
more  nearly  abolished  privilege,  estab- 
lished equal  opportunity  and  utilized  abil- 
ity, while  it  fixed  the  means  of  production 
in  the  hands  of  the  people,  guaranteed  a 
fairly  even  distribution  of  wealth,  organ- 
ized workmen  and  craftsmen  and  artists 
on  a  just  and  equable  basis  of  labour  and 
compensation,  and  therefore  helped  in  the 
greatest  production  of  vigorous,  righteous, 
and  noble  character  that  is  of  record  in 
human  annals. 

As  economic  feudalism  had  its  flowering 
in  the  guild  system,  so  social  feudalism  grew 
through  the  Crusades  into  the  institution  of 
chivalry  which,  until  it  degenerated  into  the 
licentious  pageantry  of  the  Renaissance,  was 
a  vital  force  in  society  no  substitute  for 
which  has  as  yet  been  found.  Of  this,  how- 
ever, there  was  nothing  at  the  moment  when 
[38] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

Charlemagne  took  on  himself  the  co-ordina- 
tion of  the  wandering  efforts  that  had  pre- 
ceded him,  and  the  application  of  them 
toward  the  organization  of  a  new  State  and 
the  development  of  a  new  culture.  Feudal- 
ism was  then  in  its  most  primitive  estate, 
nothing  more  than  the  offensive-defensive 
alliance  of  groups  of  harried  and  poverty- 
stricken  men  for  the  sheer  preservation  of 
life  and  such  poor  property  as  they  had. 

The  monastic  system,  as  it  had  been  or- 
ganized by  St.  Benedict,  he  possessed  in  an 
highly  developed  form,  and  he  used  it  for  its 
full  value.  Indeed,  without  it  he  could  have 
done  nothing,  he  could  hardly  have  existed, 
and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  but  for  the 
monks  from  the  sixth  to  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury, there  would  have  been  no  Mediaeval- 
ism,  nor  even  any  civilization  at  all,  and 
we  still  might  be  painting  ourselves  a  dead 
blue,  with  woad,  as  did  our  ancestors  in 
early  Britain. 

The  Church  of  the  first  five  centuries  had 
been  essentially  episcopal,  that  is,  the  devel- 
opment and  fixing  of  doctrine,  discipline, 
and  ceremonial,  the  suppression  of  innu- 
merable heresies,  the  direction  of  the  con- 
science both  of  individuals  and  of  the 
[39] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Church  itself,  had  been  the  work  of  the 
episcopal  order  —  bishops,  metropolitans, 
patriarchs,  with,  for  at  least  three  of  those 
centuries,  the  Pope  sitting  above  all  and 
acting  as  the  co-ordinating  force.  The 
Church  of  the  two  succeeding  epochs  of  five 
centuries  each,  was  essentially  monastic, 
with  the  Pope,  secure  and  alone  in  his 
supremacy,  undisputed  spiritual  lord  of  all 
Christendom,  save  only  the  patriarchate  of 
the  east  which  was  steadily  declining  in 
culture,  in  moral  force,  and  in  civil  author- 
ity. From  the  year  529  the  monasteries 
of  St.  Benedict  formed  an  ever-increasing 
number  of  refuges  from  a  world  crumbling 
about  men's  ears,  the  only  centres  of  order, 
of  culture  (such  as  it  was),  of  ethical  in- 
tegrity. They  rapidly  took  over  many  of 
the  functions  of  the  destroyed  civil  govern- 
ment—  education,  mercy,  the  direction  of 
agriculture  and  industry,  the  fostering  of 
art  and  letters  —  and  in  that  long  interval 
between  the. destruction  of  the  Roman  im- 
perium  and  the  rebirth  of  sense  of  national- 
ity served  as  the  centres  around  which  dis- 
tracted men  gathered  into  communities  for 
self-preservation.  If  we  are  tempted  at 
times  to  disapprove  the  apparent  seculariza- 
[40] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

tion  of  abbots,  monks,  and  monasteries,  in 
the  Dark  Ages  and  during  Medievalism, 
we  must  remember  that  tasks  and  duties 
rightly  belonging  to  the  civil  order  had  been 
taken  over  by  them  simply  because  there 
was  nothing  else  that  would  or  could  ad- 
minister them,  and  that  therefore  they  were 
forced  to  play  a  dual  role  if  society  was  to 
be  preserved  from  total  destruction. 

The  same  is  true  also  of  the  Papacy  and 
the  whole  Catholic  Church.  The  division 
of  the  Empire,  the  transference  of  the  seat 
of  authority  to  Constantinople,  the  aban- 
donment of  Europe,  and  the  incursions  of 
the  barbarians  had  left  the  Pope  as  the  only 
visible  sign  of  authority,  not  only  in  Italy 
but  in  all  western  Europe.  Willingly  or 
unwillingly  he  found  himself  compelled  to 
exercise  on  his  own  part  the  double  function 
of  spiritual  head  of  Christendom  and  the 
centre  of  secular  authority.  Whether  the 
succeeding  pontiffs  acquitted  themselves 
well  of  their  enormous  task,  or  ill,  is  not 
the  question :  some  did,  some  did  not,  but  in 
any  case  they  played  a  part  there  was  no  one 
else  to  play,  and  they  were  the  chief  agents 
in  bringing  some  semblance  of  order  out 
of  chaos,  largely  through  the  Benedictine 
[41] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

monks  who  were  ready  at  hand  in  almost 
every  land,  the  more  barbarous  and  insecure 
the  better,  so  far  as  their  own  inclinations 
were  concerned. 

Apart  from  the  universal  conviction 
throughout  Christian  Europe,  of  the  unity 
of  the  Church,  an  unity  made  visible 
through  the  identity  of  doctrine,  discipline, 
and  worship  between  Rome  itself  and  the 
smallest  missions  on  the  far  fringes  of 
Christendom,  the  destruction  of  sense  of  na- 
tionality and  the  multitude  of  feudal  groups 
made  Rome  still  more  the  one  possible 
centre  of  union.  This  enforced  secular 
supremacy  may  possibly  have  been  unfor- 
tunate for  the  Church  in  her  spiritual  as- 
pect, but  the  fact  remains  that  for  a  thou- 
sand years  she  was  the  one  fixed  and  in- 
variable fact  in  Europe,  the  one  authority 
that  remained  unaffected  by  the  rise  and 
fall  of  kings,  of  dynasties,  of  the  Empire 
itself.  Heresy  could  not  shake  her,  schism 
could  not  diminish  her  power.  Bad  bish- 
ops, recreant  priests  and  monks,  evil  in- 
truders even  on  the  chair  of  Peter,  anti- 
popes  in  armed  contention,  all  left  her  in 
the  end  just  as  she  had  been  before,  and 
however  hopeless  her  case  from  time  to 
[42] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

time,  reform  succeeded  in  the  end,  and  great 
figures  like  Gregory  the  Great,  Gregory 
VII,  Innocent  III  appeared  to  raise  her  still 
higher  than  before  in  power  and  in  visible 
glory.  Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  Catho- 
lic Church  remains  the  greatest  single  fact 
in  human  history.  It  is  therefore  hardly 
to  be  wondered  at  that  for  this  same  thou- 
sand years  the  Catholic  Church  should  have 
seemed  to  all  Christians,  and  should  actu- 
ally have  been,  a  greater  force  in  secular, 
as  well  as  in  spiritual  affairs,  than  kings  and 
emperors. 

Now  it  was  during  this  very  period  that 
culture,  civilization,  and  the  arts  were  born 
again,  and  chiefly  that  art  of  architecture 
we  are  considering,  since  it  is  the  most 
brilliant  instance  of  logical  and  consistent 
growth  that  is  of  record  in  the  annals  of 
man,  reaching  as  it  did,  in  the  end,  a  su- 
preme height  that  staggers  the  imagination. 
It  fell  with  the  power  that  had  created  it, 
for  the  last  five  centuries  have  been  of  a 
temper  as  different  from  the  "  Great  Thou- 
sand Years "  as  these  were  different  from 
paganism  itself.  From  then  on  diversity  in 
religion  took  the  place  of  unity,  the  long 
contest  between  Church  and  State  was  de- 
[43] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

termined  in  favour  of  the  secular  power, 
and  religion  has  become  less  and  less  a 
matter  of  moment.  The  Catholic  Church 
has  now  taken  its  place  in  general  esti- 
mation as  only  the  largest  amongst  some 
one  hundred  and  forty  divisions  of  Chris- 
tianity, without  material  effect  in  some  na- 
tions, dominant  in  the  Mediaeval  sense  in 
none.  Nationality  has  split  Europe  into 
self-conscious  and  mutually  inimical  frag- 
ments as  the  Reformation  split  Christianity; 
and  of  necessity  therefore,  the  art,  and  very 
particularly,  the  architecture,  of  the  post- 
Reformation  era  has  been  in  a  category  by 
itself. 

In  dealing  then  with  the  development  of 
architecture  from  Charlemagne  to  Henry 
VIII  we  must  first  visualize  for  ourselves 
the  Europe  of  that  era,  though  admittedly 
the  task  is  no  easy  one.  It  was  in  every 
great  and  every  little  respect  utterly  dif- 
ferent to  what  it  is  today,  while  it  is  cut  off 
from  us  by  five  centuries  of  an  entirely  new 
civilization  of  which  we  are  children  by 
inheritance  and  therefore  almost  incapable 
of  thinking  back  into  a  time  with  which  we 
have  little  sympathy  either  by  temper  or  by 
tendency.  Summarized,  the  points  to  be 
[44] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

borne  in  mind  are  these.  Total  extinction 
of  classical  civilization,  with  at  first  the 
wiping  out  even  of  the  memory  thereof.  A 
new  race  taking  over  the  entire  direction  of 
affairs,  of  the  north,  northern:  savage,  il- 
literate, but  clean  in  blood,  inordinately 
vigorous,  fresh  from  the  cold  hard  shores 
of  the  Baltic.  The  extinction  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, order,  law:  the  substitution  of 
tribal  instincts  for  those  of  nationality,  and 
the  rapid  development  of  a  feudal  system 
of  personal  relationships,  as  much  in  ad- 
vance of  what  it  superseded  as  it  differed 
therefrom.  Wide  extension  of  Christianity 
of  explicitly  Catholic  type,  with  the  sup- 
pression and  extermination  of  Arianism  and 
all  other  heresies.  Unity  of  theological  be- 
lief and  religious  practices,  with  the  Papacy 
as  the  only  recognized  centre  of  spiritual 
authority  and  as  the  one  indestructible  in- 
stitution in  the  world.  A  monastic  system, 
Benedictine  by  rule,  that  was  rapidly  ex- 
tending itself,  through  its  innumerable 
monasteries  and  its  equally  innumerable 
missionaries,  not  only  in  Christian  Europe, 
but  into  every  neighbouring  heathen  land 
as  well,  and  coming  in  close  touch  with  al- 
most every  man,  woman,  and  child  as  reli- 
[45] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

gious  director,  educator,  civilizer,  and  uni- 
fying power.  Such  was  Europe,  if  we  use 
the  term  geographically;  culturally,  nation- 
ally, Europe  was  non-existent.  Manners, 
morals,  customs,  all  had  fallen  to  the  lowest 
point  recorded  in  history;  and  learning, 
culture,  and  even  decency  had  fled  to  the 
east,  taking  refuge  with  the  Mohammedan 
Arabs  in  the  Caliphate  of  Baghdad.  Cor- 
rupt as  the  Papacy  had  become  in  the  gen- 
eral corruption  it  was  all  there  was  of  order 
in  the  west,  and,  vastly  strengthened  by 
a  definite  accession  of  temporal  power 
through  the  conferring  on  Pope  Stephen  by 
King  Pepin  of  the  Exarchate  of  Ravenna 
in  756,  it  could  at  least  act  as  a  general 
unifying  influence  both  spiritually  and 
temporally. 

Against  this  single  authority  Charle- 
magne first  set  a  new  civil  power,  not  in 
opposition  but  in  union,  and  with  a  breadth 
of  vision,  a  practicality  of  action,  that  shine 
singly  in  the  long  night  of  the  Dark  Ages. 
With  a  strong  hand  he  reformed  the 
Church,  founded  new  monasteries,  built  up 
schools,  fostered  agriculture,  and  sur- 
rounded himself  with  all  the  scholars  and 
artists  and  craftsmen  he  could  gather  from 
[46] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

the  four  quarters  of  Europe:  Alcuin  of 
Britain,  Peter  of  Pisa,  Paul  the  Doctor, 
Theodaulphus  of  Spain,  Eberhard,  Hinc- 
mar,  Erugena,  Radbertus  Maurus. 

Charlemagne  was  not  a  sudden  figure  of 
light  and  power,  shot  headlong,  cometwise, 
through  the  night  of  the  Dark  Ages :  he  was 
rather  the  crest  and  culmination  of  a  long, 
slow,  upward  sweep  of  recovery,  the  origin 
of  which  was  far  away  at  the  very  begin- 
nings of  that  sixth  century  that  saw  the  end- 
ing of  one  era,  the  opening  of  another. 
When,  at  the  hands  of  the  Pope,  he  was 
crowned  Emperor  of  the  West,  on  Christ- 
mas Day,  A.D.  800  in  St.  Peter's,  the  highest 
point  was  reached  in  the  five-century  era 
we  call  roughly  the  Dark  Ages.  After  his 
death,  fourteen  years  later,  the  curve  began 
to  decline  until  it  sunk  again  as  low  as  be- 
fore, in  order  that  once  more,  the  five-hun- 
dred-year vibration  being  accomplished,  a 
new  rise  might  be  initiated  that  for  its  own 
period  of  an  identical  number  of  years, 
should  mark  the  achievement,  yet  in  the  end 
the  inevitable  loss,  of  all  Charlemagne  had 
striven  to  attain. 

He  was  the  first  great  builder  for  five 
centuries;  but  of  all  the  work  in  which  he 

[47] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

was  personally  interested  —  churches,  mon- 
asteries, palaces  —  nothing  remains  but  the 
royal  chapel  at  Aix-la-Chapelle,  and  this 
outwardly,  and  in  a  measure  internally,  has 
been  radically  rebuilt.  His  secretary,  Eber- 
hard,  built  a  small  church  at  Steinbach 
which,  shorn  of  its  aisles,  still  remains  in  a 
ruinous  and  desecrated  condition,  and  a  few 
years  later  St.  Michael's,  Fulda,  was 
erected.  The  interesting  gateway  and 
chapel  at  Lorsch  is  fifty  years  later  in  date. 
In  France  the  baptistery  of  St.  Jean,  Poi- 
tiers, and  the  unique  church  of  Germigny- 
des-Pres  are  about  all  we  have.  How  much 
has  been  destroyed  that  would  be  illuminat- 
ing on  the  point  of  architectural  develop- 
ment, it  is  impossible  to  say,  but  there  is 
little  in  what  remains  that  would  indicate 
irreparable  loss.  The  chapel  at  Aix  is 
simply  San  Vitale  at  Ravenna  coarsened 
and  largely  built  of  old  materials.  It  is 
an  octagon  within  an  aisle  of  sixteen  sides, 
with  a  square  presbytery,  two  staircase 
towers,  and  a  rectangular  tribune :  the  vault- 
ing of  the  aisles  is  without  ribs,  and  the 
windows  are  round  arched  and  splayed. 
Of  course  the  dome,  gables,  towers,  and 
accessories  are  comparatively  modern  addi- 
[48] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

tions.  Einhard  is  usually  said  to  have  been 
the  "  architect,"  but  Rivoira  questions  this, 
making  him  a  kind  of  clerk  of  the  works, 
the  master-builder  having  come  from  By- 
zantium, with,  working  under  him,  Italian 
craftsmen  and  local  Prankish  labourers. 
Steinbach  is  equally  unimaginative  and  even 
more  primitive,  a  T-cross  plan  with  aisles 
and  a  semicircular  apse,  the  simplest  form 
of  Roman  basilica,  translated  into  the  rough 
materials  of  a  northern  and  barbarous  land. 
Germigny-des-Pres  is  a  curious  cross-shaped 
plan  in  a  square  enclosing  nave,  with  a  small 
apse  terminating  each  of  the  four  arms. 
The  plan  is  remotely  Byzantine,  but  the  ex- 
terior composition  with  its  central  tower, 
its  gables,  and  its  lean-to  aisles  is  essentially 
northern  in  expression  and  in  a  distant  sort 
of  way  may  be  considered,  if  not  the  proto- 
type, at  least  the  first  hesitating  step  in  the 
direction  of  the  development  that  three  cen- 
turies later  was  to  begin  in  power  and  end 
in  the  unexampled  nobility  of  the  Gothic 
church.  The  interesting  and  even  original 
decorative  scheme  of  inlaid  stonework  at 
Lorsch  and  at  Poitiers  with  its  abortive 
pilasters  and  triangular  windows  and  steep 
decorative  gables,  is  also  of  the  north,  but 
[49] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

it  never  led  anywhere  and  is  no  more  than 
the  sport  of  ambitious  incompetence. 

Charlemagne  neither  invented  nor  re- 
created a  style :  what  he  did  was  simply  to 
stimulate  into  activity  the  moribund  tradi- 
tions of  building,  and  as  well  the  inheritors 
of  these  traditions.  There  were  still  in 
Ravenna  the  descendants  of  earlier  and 
more  competent  craftsmen;  the  Lombards 
had  built  up  a  building  trade  of  sorts  and 
these  men  were  undoubtedly  eager  for  an 
opportunity  to  show  what  they  could  do. 
Finally,  and  most  important  of  all,  were 
the  Comacini.  This  mysterious  guild  is  first 
referred  to  by  name  in  the  Code  of  King 
Rotharis,  the  Lombard,  in  the  year  640,  but 
after  a  manner  that  proves  a  long  prior 
existence,  and  a  century  later  King  Liut- 
prand  in  an  official  memorandum,  recog- 
nizes in  detail  the  dignity  and  importance 
of  its  members  even  above  all  other  of  his 
Italian  subjects.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
these  Comacini  were  the  lineal  successors 
of  the  old  Roman  building  guilds,  some 
members  of  which  had  fled  to  Como  after 
the  final  ruin  of  the  Empire  and  had  pre- 
served somewhat  of  their  organization  and 
of  their  methods  and  traditions,  handing 
[50] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

them  down  to  successive  generations  though 
with  constantly  weakening  force.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  they  were  the  progenitors  of  the 
order  of  Freemasons,  but  in  any  case  they 
represent  the  most  vigorous  survival  of  the 
Roman  building  guilds  and  served  to  pre- 
serve some  part  of  the  old  tradition  while 
they  contributed  such  architecture  as  was 
possible  during  the  Dark  Ages,  until  a  new 
vitality  in  the  world  made  inevitable  a  new 
art  that  was  based  on  the  very  principles 
and  methods  they  had  saved  from  the  gen- 
eral wreck. 

The  Comacini  were  a  true  building  guild 
of  masons,  joiners,  stone  carvers;  organized 
in  lodges,  with  their  apprentices,  work- 
men, and  masters.  Traditionally  the  north 
Italian  lakes  were  their  habitat,  but  they 
journeyed  from  place  to  place  to  undertake 
such  small  work  as  the  times  might  de- 
mand. For  several  centuries  they  learned 
nothing  and  forgot  much.  From  the  great 
days  of  the  Baths  of  Diocletian  —  that  most 
amazing  building  that  contains  in  embryo 
so  many  of  the  structural  elements  of  Me- 
diaeval architecture  —  to  such  poor  little 
half  barbarous  efforts  as  Toscanella,  is  a 
fall  indeed,  but  it  is  something  that  even 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

this  was  possible  considering  that  civiliza- 
tion itself  had  ceased,  and  Toscanella,  with 
the  similar  work  of  the  school  of  Ravenna, 
in  eastern  Italy  and  Dalmatia,  was  not  only 
the  last  word  in  a  long  decline  but  the  first 
of  a  still  more  amazing  advance  that  rose 
at  last  to  a  point  where  even  the  Baths  of 
Diocletian  were  immeasurably  surpassed. 

What  these  building  guilds  did  was  to 
standardize  architecture  along  simple  lines 
that  fitted  the  time ;  but  while  it  so  lost  all 
vitality  it  gained  in  two  directions:  first,  by 
being  held  always  to  a  standard  that,  while 
low  and  tending  always  lower,  was  defi- 
nitely higher  than  the  apology  for  civiliza- 
tion in  which  it  was  immersed;  second, 
through  the  purging  away  of  that  artificial 
and  illogical  formalism  that  had  been  the 
last  estate  of  a  great  art  of  building.  What 
happens  when  a  once  noble  art  dissolves  at 
last  and  no  body  of  men  remains  to  preserve 
traditions  and  hold  to  standards,  we  can  see 
here  in  America  between  the  years  1835  and 
1885.  Nothing  quite  so  bad  as  this  occurred 
in  Europe  during  the  Dark  Ages,  and  for 
this  we  must  thank  the  Comacini  and  their 
fellows.  We  can  also  see  in  the  so-called 
"  classical "  architecture  of  the  nineteenth 
[52] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

century  in  Europe  as  well  as  America,  what 
equally  happens  when  life  has  gone  out  of  a 
style,  leaving  it  a  mass  of  artificial  dogmas 
and  prejudices,  and  when  material  prosper- 
ity, instead  of  ruin  and  desolation,  forms  its 
environment.  If  ease  and  peace  and  plenty 
had  followed  the  last  decadence  of  Roman 
art  it  is  hard  to  see  how  art  itself  could  ever 
have  happened  again.  As  it  was  the  non- 
sense was  completely  knocked  out  .of  it  by 
adversity:  for  three  centuries  it  was  archi- 
tecture reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  which 
is  a  very  good  thing  for  this  or  any  other 
art  —  or  society  itself,  for  that  matter  — 
whenever  a  drastic  reform  is  imperative. 

In  estimating  the  work  of  this  period 
from  the  fall  of  Rome  to  the  beginning  of 
the  "  Great  Recovery  "  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, when  nearly  all  the  structural  features 
that  underlie  the  great  Gothic  of  the  Middle 
Ages  were  to  take  form  and  shape,  it  must 
always  be  remembered  that  we  are  dealing 
with  only  a  casual  few  of  the  structures  that 
once  existed.  It  is  very  tempting  to 
work  assiduously  backward  year  after  year 
through  half  forgotten  fragments,  finding 
at  last  the  one  where  first  appears  some 
pregnant  device  later  to  achieve  immortal- 
[53] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

ity  in  a  Durham  or  a  Notre  Dame,  and  to 
hail  this  as  the  actual  work  of  genius  from 
which  so  much  was  to  follow.  For  one  such 
monument  that  remains  an  hundred  have 
been  destroyed  to  tantalize  us  by  their  bare 
foundations,  like  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  for 
instance,  that  owes  its  destruction  to  the  in- 
sanity of  the  French  Revolution.  What 
may  have  been  here  in  these  ruined  sanc- 
tuaries no  one  can  say,  but  at  least  there  is 
evidence  to  prove  not  only  that  Gothic  did 
not  spring  full-fledged  from  the  marvellous 
half  century  between  1150  and  1200,  but 
that  the  various  elements  that  make  up  its 
organism  were  either  the  result  of  a  slow 
development  extending  over  centuries,  or  of 
the  return  to  far-away  types  suggested  at 
least  in  the  later  architecture  of  Rome  it- 
self. For  this  reason  the  quarrel  as  to  which 
church  possesses  the  earliest  ribbed  vault 
is  little  to  the  point.  It  may  be  Monte- 
fiascone,  or  Sant'  Ambrogio,  or  Durham, 
but  may  perfectly  well  have  been  any  one 
of  another  score  of  French  or  Lombard 
churches,  no  vestige  of  which  now  remains ; 
moreover  the  fact  still  confronts  us  that  in 
Syria,  and  even  in  the  later  buildings  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  ribbed  vaults  were  used, 
[54] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

and  their  reappearance  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury may  be  the  result  either  of  reinven- 
tion or  of  rediscovery  of  precedents  long 
forgotten. 

The  question  therefore  suggests  itself: 
May  we  not,  in  pronouncing  the  work  of  the 
Dark  Ages  generally  barren  and  retrogres- 
sive, be  doing  it  injustice,  just  because  the 
great  mass  of  building  has  been  utterly  de- 
stroyed? The  chance  is  negligible,  for  the 
chapel  at  Aix  remains  and  San  Lorenzo 
Maggiore,  Milan,  in  its  plan  and  general 
structure,  and  we  know  that  both  were 
lauded  by  contemporary  chroniclers  as 
crowning  and  incredible  triumphs  of  art. 
Undoubtedly  they  represent  the  best  work 
possible  to  the  Comacine  guilds  of  the 
north,  as  Sant'  Apollinare  in  Classe,  Pa- 
renzo,  and  Pomposa  were  the  best  the  suc- 
cessors of  the  guilds  of  Ravenna  could  pro- 
duce in  their  own  territory,  and  on  this 
basis  we  can  only  estimate  the  architecture 
of  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries  as  dry, 
lifeless,  and  without  invention,  yet  possessed 
of  a  certain  naive  seriousness  and  self-re- 
spect that  enlist  our  sympathy  if  they  cannot 
win  our  admiration. 

Two  general  plans  were  in  vogue  and 
[55] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

employed  indifferently  as  between  the 
region  architecturally  subject  to  Ravenna 
and  that  which  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Coma- 
cine  masters :  the  basilica  and  the  aisled  and 
domed  polygon.  The  basilica  was  the  orig- 
inal Roman  hall,  with  its  two  rows  of  col- 
umns supporting  arches  that  bore  the  small- 
windowed  clerestory,  and  divided  the  area 
into  three  sections,  the  central  one  being 
about  double  the  width  of  the  side  aisles. 
In  the  simplest  form  the  nave  proper  ends 
in  a  semicircular  apse  surmounted  by  a  half 
dome,  smaller  apses  for  side  altars  being 
added  later  as  terminations  of  the  aisles. 
The  central  area  was  covered  by  a  trussed 
roof  of  timber,  the  side  aisles  by  lean-to 
roofs,  and  there  were  neither  towers,  domes, 
nor  masonry  vaults.  As  the  churches  grew 
in  size  an  aisleless  transept  was  added  be- 
tween nave  and  apse  to  give  space  for  richer 
ceremonial,  greater  numbers  of  clergy  or 
monks,  and  for  additional  altars.  So  came 
the  T-cross  plan  which  is  the  basis  of  all 
Mediaeval  church  plans.  This  basilican 
type  was  practically  universal  under  Con- 
stantine,  and  in  the  end  it  won,  during  the 
Dark  Ages,  supremacy  in  the  west,  quite 
displacing  the  circular  or  polygonal  type. 
[56] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

This  latter  had  an  eventful  career.  Its 
prototype  may  be  found  in  certain  Roman 
tombs  and  great  apartments  in  the  Imperial 
baths,  though  the  analogy  is  somewhat 
strained,  and  the  relation  between  the  cali- 
darium  of  the  Baths  of  Caracalla  and  San 
Vitale  is  far  to  seek.  The  first  is  simply  a 
circular  hall  enclosed  by  enormously  thick 
walls  in  which  square  and  semicircular 
niches  are  cut,  and  surmounted  by  a  low, 
ponderous  dome :  it  is  without  any  particu- 
lar articulation  and  is  quite  static  in  quality. 
The  second  is  highly  organized,  with  the 
load  concentrated  on  massive  piers,  between 
which  little  arcaded  apses  project  into  an 
intricately  vaulted,  surrounding  aisle  of  two 
superimposed  stories.  One  of  these  apses 
is  thrust  through  the  aisle  until  it  projects 
beyond  the  perimeter  of  the  aisle  wall.  The 
central  polygon  rises  well  above  the  aisles 
and  is  covered  by  a  hemispherical  dome 
which  is  supported  by  large  arches  sub- 
divided by  columns  into  three  spaces  also 
covered  by  arches:  altogether  a  very  rich 
and  highly  articulated  scheme  unlike  any- 
thing Rome  can  offer  in  comparison.  It 
seems  to  me  an  undoubted  fact  that  the 
polygonal  and  domical  church  is  a  develop- 
[57] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

ment  of  the  East,  probably  in  the  dioceses 
of  Damascus  and  Antioch,  and  brought 
thence  to  Constantinople  and  Ravenna  by 
master  builders  who  we  know  were  contin- 
ually drawn  from  this  section  by  the  Em- 
perors of  the  East. 

Whatever  its  source  it  was  the  chief  fac- 
tor in  the  development  of  the  supreme  archi- 
tecture of  the  reign  of  Justinian,  and 
through  San  Vitale,  Aix-la-Chapelle  and 
Sta.  Maria  Maggiore,  Milan,  had  every- 
thing to  do  with  the  evolution  of  the  Gothic 
chevet,  as  I  shall  try  to  show  later.  In  it- 
self, as  the  general  scheme  for  a  church,  it 
found  scant  favour  in  the  West,  yielding 
place  to  the  basilican  form,  which  had  es- 
tablished itself  in  Rome,  had  already  gone 
thence  with  the  spreading  of  Christianity, 
and  was  by  nature  capable  of  almost  in- 
definite expansion  in  all  directions. 

Throughout  the  Dark  Ages,  then,  this 
basilican  form,  reduced  to  its  lowest  terms, 
was  the  standard  of  building.  The  vast 
majesty  of  the  Constantinian  churches  in 
Rome,  the  marble  and  mosaic  splendours  of 
the  Constantinople  of  Justinian,  the  more 
sober  richness  of  the  Ravenna  of  the  ex- 
archs were  very  far  away,  and  in  their  place 
[58] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

we  have  rough  masonry  of  brick  and  stone, 
small  round-arched  windows  with  splayed 
reveals,  misfit  marble  columns,  with  odds 
and  ends  of  capitals  left  from  ruined  build- 
ings, and  exteriors  unornamented  except 
for  narrow  pilaster  strips,  arched  corbel 
courses,  and  sometimes,  as  at  Agliate  and 
San  Vincenzo  in  Prato,  rude  arcades  built 
up  on  the  haunches  of  semi-domes  to  sup- 
port the  protecting  roofs. 

Of  ornamental  carving  there  is  more  than 
one  might  expect,  but  it  usually  appears  in 
altar  fronts  and  canopies,  and  in  tombs.  It 
is  very  flat,  very  conventionalized,  yet  deco- 
rative and  with  a  curiously  delicate  feeling 
for  space  composition.  The  symbolism  is 
conservatively  Early  Christian,  the  motives 
decadent  Byzantine  with  curious  Syrian 
admixtures,  and  here  and  there,  as  in  the 
increasing  frequency  of  dragons  and  wild 
beasts  and  birds,  something  that  is  essen- 
tially of  the  north.  It  is  only  here,  how- 
ever, that  the  new  barbarian  blood  begins 
to  show  itself;  structurally  and  in  point  of 
architectural  design  the  northern  races,  in 
spite  of  their  universal  dominion,  exert  no 
influence  whatever.  The  slowly  expiring 
tradition  of  Rome,  Ravenna,  and  Byzan- 
[59] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

tium  is  still  in  full  control,  and  it  is  not  until 
the  beginning  of  the  eleventh  century  (that 
mystical  year  1000,  when  the  world  awakes 
to  new  possibilities  and  begins  the  develop- 
ment of  the  greatest  era  in  history)  that  the 
tribes  of  the  north,  Christianized,  brought 
into  orderly  association,  and  subjected  to 
the  vital  stimulus  of  a  regenerated  monas- 
ticism,  begin  to  raise  the  fabric  of  their 
own  self-expression  on  the  foundations  fur- 
nished for  them  by  the  humble  builders  of 
the  Dark  Ages.  It  has  been  a  long  period 
of  five  centuries  of  arduous  growth,  not 
into  civilization  but  toward  it.  They  had 
destroyed  the  classical  culture  of  Rome  as 
they  had  devastated  her  cities,  but  instead 
of  inheriting  her  wealth  and  acquiring  ease 
and  plenty  they  had  found  themselves  heirs 
to  poverty,  anarchy,  and  desolation.  One 
thing  they  had  gained  which  had  been  no 
part  of  their  plan,  and  that  was  Christian- 
ity; and  the  Church,  standing  for  five  hun- 
dred years  before  their  eyes  as  the  one 
centre  of  certainty  in  a  wilderness  of  change 
and  hopeless  disorder,  had,  through  her 
monks  and  missionaries,  subjected  them  to 
new  influences  that  in  the  end  must  bear 
fruit  in  a  new  culture,  a  new  civilization, 
[60] 


THE    AGE    OF    CHARLEMAGNE 

a  new  righteousness,  and  therefore  a  new 
art.  What  the  results  were  we  shall  try  to 
see  when  we  take  up  in  our  next  lecture 
the  story  of  amazing  advance  from  the  mil- 
lennial year  that  saw  the  Dark  Ages  end 
and  the  great  Catholic  Middle  Ages  begin 
their  triumphant  career. 


[61] 


LECTURE   III 
THE    GREAT   AWAKENING 

THE  Carolingian  renaissance  was  short- 
lived :  there  was  always  something  artificial 
and  predetermined  about  it,  and  it  outlived 
the  great  Emperor  scarcely  a  generation. 
Fourteen  years  after  the  crowning  in  St. 
Peter's,  he  was  dead  and  succeeded  by  his 
son,  Louis  the  Pious,  who  was  ill-fitted  for 
those  strenuous  times.  Royal  quarrels 
wrecked  the  unstable  Empire,  and  at  the 
Treaty  of  Verdun  it  fell  apart,  rent  verti- 
cally between  France,  Lorraine  and  Italy, 
and  Germany,  the  second  division  then  in- 
cluding all  of  what  is  now  France  east  of 
the  Rhone  and  Germany  west  of  the  Rhine, 
while  Germany  itself  extended  only  as  far  as 
the  Elbe  in  the  north,  the  Danube  and  Save 
in  the  south.  Brandenburg,  Pomerania,  and 
Prussia  were  still  entirely  barbarian,  and 
destined  to  remain  so  for  four  centuries. 

The  decline  in  culture  and  civilization 
was  instant  and  headlong:  war  and  anarchy 
[62] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

took  the  place  of  order,  morals  degenerated, 
and  once  more  savage  invaders  —  North- 
men in  France,  Huns  in  Germany  - 
pushed  on  across  the  dissolving  frontiers 
carrying  fire  and  death  and  leaving  wide 
ruin  behind  them.  It  was  bad  enough  in 
France  where  the  Vikings  from  their  long 
ships  were  sweeping  all  the  north  and  sail- 
ing up  the  Seine  to  sack  and  burn  Rouen 
and  Paris,  and  in  Germany  where  the  Huns 
were  following  suit,  but  it  was  worst  of  all 
in  Italy,  for  there  the  collapse  of  society 
was  most  complete.  The  degradation  of 
morals  was  so  flagrant  that  at  last  the  gen- 
eral corruption  infected  even  the  Church, 
which,  already  rent  by  the  Eastern  schism 
in  866,  sank  to  the  lowest  point  in  its  his- 
tory., There  were  of  course  good  bishops, 
priests,  and  especially  monks,  who  had  not 
abandoned  themselves  to  simony,  pluralism, 
and  debauchery,  but  the  rule  was  other- 
wise, and  for  years  even  the  chair  of  Peter 
was  filled  by  laymen  and  simoniacal  priests 
who  had  won  their  places  through  bribery, 
corruption,  and  murder,  and  even,  for  one 
incredible  period,  by  the  bastards  and 
favourites  of  the  unspeakable  Marozia  and 
her  Roman  clan. 

[63] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

If  the  Carolingian  epoch  was  the  "  false 
dawn"  of  Christian  civilization,  the  last  half 
of  the  ninth  century  and  the  first  quarter 
of  the  tenth  formed  that  darkest  period  of 
night  that  comes  just  before  the  real  dawn. 
For  the  dawn  came,  in  the  midst  of  a  tem- 
pest of  destruction,  horror,  and  humilia- 
tion; came  as  irresistibly  as  the  rising  of 
the  sun,  and,  it  would  seem,  as  independ- 
ently of  human  control.  Just  why  this  sud- 
den and  unpredicted  regeneration  should 
then  have  shown  itself  with  power  is  hard 
to  say.  It  is  sufficiently  easy  to  understand 
why  the  eleventh  century  should  have  begun 
in  vigour  to  close  in  glory,  for  by  that  time 
all  things  had  been  prepared,  but  why  out 
of  the  horror  of  the  ninth  century  should 
suddenly  arise  the  first  beginnings  in  the 
tenth  is  one  of  those  phenomena  that  baffle 
the  understanding  of  evolutionists  and  are 
comprehensible  only  to  those  who  believe 
that  the  destinies  of  the  world  are  under 
the  guidance  and  control  of  a  Supreme  Om- 
niscience Who  walks  not  by  the  ways  of 
man  but  otherwise. 

In  any  case  the  change  occurred  and  with 
startling  suddenness  and  energy.  The  first 
significant  event,  marking  the  sharp  transi- 
[64] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

tion  from  one  century  to  another,  is  the 
founding  of  the  monastery  of  Cluny  in  909. 
Since  the  establishing  of  the  Order  of  St. 
Benedict  nothing  so  pregnant  of  possibili- 
ties for  the  future  had  taken  place.  Cluny 
was  Benedictinism,  reformed,  regenerated, 
and  showing  itself  in  different  guise,  but  the 
legitimate  successor  of  the  earlier  monasti- 
cism,  and  in  itself,  and  through  its  offshoot, 
the  Cistercian  Order,  was  to  act  as  the  spir- 
itual stimulus  of  Europe  for  two  centuries 
and  make  possible  the  great  epoch  of 
Medievalism. 

The  Cluniac  Rule  was  promulgated  in 
927,  by  Abbot  Odo,  and  from  that  date 
Cluny  became  an  operative  and  dominant 
force.  In  the  meantime  secular  events  of 
equal  importance  had  taken  place,  for  in 
919  Henry  the  Fowler  began  the  Saxon 
line  that  was  to  lead  to  Otto  the  Great,  and 
the  resurrected  Holy  Roman  Empire.  In 
England  the  work  and  character  of  Alfred 
the  Great  were  bearing  fruit  in  a  rapid  in- 
crease in  culture,  craftsmanship,  learning, 
and  international  influence,  with  St.  Dun- 
stan  as  a  type  of  the  time  and  a  kind  of 
patron  saint  of  all  the  arts  from  architec- 
ture to  embroidery.  In  a  way,  however, 
[65] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Alfred  must  be  looked  on  as  a  later  counter- 
part of  Charlemagne,  embodying  as  he  did 
the  low  cresting  of  the  wave  of  the  Dark 
Ages,  from  500  to  1000,  rather  than  the 
first  evidences  of  the  new  life  that  was  to 
mark  the  succeeding  epoch.  His  own  era  of 
advancement  was  short-lived;  the  Danish 
invasions  followed,  with  a  consequent  period 
of  retrogression,  and  the  real  era  of  Mediae- 
valism  was  not  to  begin  until  the  Norman 
Conquest  of  1066,  a  full  century  later  than 
the  beginnings  on  the  Continent. 

In  936  Otto  the  Great  became  Emperor 
and  under  his  firm  hand  the  Hungarians 
and  Slavs  were  beaten  back,  new  regions 
were  brought  under  western  influence, 
Christianity  crossed  over  the  borders  of 
heathen  neighbours,  and  the  new  power, 
order,  and  dignity  of  the  Teutonic  empire 
led  inevitably  to  the  union  of  Germany  and 
Italy  and  the  founding  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire  of  the  Germanic  peoples.  Hugh 
Capet  in  987  wrote  "  finis  "  at  the  end  of 
the  line  of  degenerate  Carolingians  and 
established  the  Capetian  dynasty,  while 
Denmark  in  935  and  Poland  in  966  had 
accepted  Christianity  and  marked  their 
submission  by  enthroning  Christian  kings. 
[66] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

Nor  must  the  influence  of  the  Arabs  be  dis- 
regarded. From  their  capitol  at  Cordova, 
a  centre  of  education,  learning,  science,  and 
culture,  a  vital  and  stimulating  force  had 
extended  itself  over  all  western  Europe, 
curiously  combining  with  the  new  Catholic 
and  monastic  spirit,  to  give  a  fresh  impetus 
to  renascent  civilization.  Finally,  in  the 
very  last  year  of  the  tenth  century,  the  degra- 
dation of  the  Papacy  received  its  first  check 
through  Pope  Sylvester  II,  who  was  fol- 
lowed by  Benedict  VIII,  and,  after  the 
scandalous  relapse  of  John  XIX  and  Bene- 
dict IX,  by  such  great  leaders  and  true 
shepherds  as  Clement  II,  Leo  IX,  and 
Hildebrand  Pope  Gregory  VII,  the  last  one 
of  the  very  great  figures  in  history  and  the 
corner-stone  of  the  Mediaeval  Church. 

From  the  beginning  the  monks  of  Cluny 
had  been  the  chief  influence  toward  right- 
eousness, steadfast  even  when  the  Papacy 
itself  was  renegade  and  rotten,  and  in  the 
end  lifting  it  to  their  own  lofty  plane  of 
thought,  conduct,  and  action.  Partly  Jbe- 
cause  of  this  faithfulness  (which  was  pre- 
served and  even  intensified  by  the  succeed- 
ing Cistercians,  Carthusians,  and  Augus- 
tinians,  and  even  later  by  the  Dominicans 
[67]  ' 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

and  Franciscans) ,  the  "  regulars  "  or  monas- 
tic clergy  not  only  acquired  power  and  in- 
fluence, together  with  the  confidence  and 
affection  of  the  people,  far  above  that  of 
the  secular  or  parochial  clergy,  but  they 
dominated  and  controlled  the  episcopate 
and  even  the  Papacy  itself.  For  a  time 
Cluny  was  more  powerful  than  the  Pope, 
and  so  was  Clairvaux  in  its  turn,  and  as 
the  first  took  charge  of  the  Normans,  Chris- 
tianizing them  and  making  Normandy  the 
greatest  centre  of  energy  in  Europe,  so  the 
second  seized  upon  the  Franks  and  gave  to 
them  the  task,  and  the  ability  to  accomplish 
it,  of  perfecting  what  Normandy  had 
initiated. 

Between  them  they  created  the  Christian 
civilization  of  the  Middle  Ages,  monasti- 
cism  in  two  diverse  forms  working  through 
two  races  of  diverse  blood,  but  both  essen- 
tially of  the  north;  Norman  on  the  one 
hand,  French  and  Burgundian  on  the 
other.  The  expression  of  this  civilization 
in  artistic  form  was,  first,  Norman  archi- 
tecture, second,  the  Gothic  architecture  of 
the  He  de  France. 

The  experience  of  every  student  of 
Medievalism  is,  I  think,  a  first  return  to 
[68] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

the  thirteenth  century  as  the  centre  of  in- 
terest and  enthusiasm,  then  an  immediate 
working  back  to  the  twelfth  century  as 
representing  something  far  more  massive, 
vigorous,  and  significant,  and  finally  an 
almost  enforced  return  to  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury. The  thirteenth,  well  called  by  Dr. 
Walsh  "  the  greatest  of  centuries,"  was  an 
era  of  glorious  accomplishment,  but  in  it 
were  already  showing  the  first  evidences  of 
dissolution.  The  twelfth  was  the  century 
of  magnificent  endeavour,  and  all  that  was 
great  in  its  successor  is  here  in  embryo,  not 
alone  in  art  but  in  philosophy,  religion,  and 
the  conduct  of  life.  The  eleventh  century 
is  a  time  of  aspiration  and  of  vision,  of  the 
enunciation  of  new  principles  and  of  the 
first  shock  of  contest  between  the  old  that 
was  doomed,  the  new  that  was  destined  to 
unprecedented  victories.  Great  leaders 
suddenly  arise  out  of  an  age  without  lead- 
ers: Henry  II,  Henry  IV,  Edmund  Iron- 
sides, Edward  the  Confessor,  William  the 
Conqueror,  Boleslav  of  Poland,  Olaf  of 
Sweden,  Sancho  the  Great  of  Navarre, 
Pope  Sylvester  II,  Leo  IX,  Gregory  VII, 
St.  Anselm,  Lanfranc,  St.  Peter  Damian, 
Fulbert  of  Chartres,  Bernward  of  Hildes- 
[69] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

heim,  Guido  Arretino,  Avicenna;  monas- 
teries and  convents  on  the  reformed  lines 
of  Cluny  were  springing  up  on  every  hand, 
redeeming  the  wilderness,  spreading  edu- 
cation, establishing  works  of  mercy  and 
charity. 

The  civilization  of  the  eleventh  century 
was  monastic,  feudal,  and  predominantly 
Norman.  Its  vitality  was  prodigious.  At 
every  point  the  heathen  assaults  had  been 
beaten  back,  the  peril  of  the  false  prophet 
was  apparently  at- an  end,  and  the  northern 
tribes,  whether  Teutonic,  Norse,  Saxon,  or 
Frank,  had  been  Christianized  and  partly 
assimilated,  excepting  always  the  still 
heathen  tribes  of  Prussia  and  Brandenburg. 
Feudalism  had  saved  Europe  with  the  aid 
of  St.  Benedict  and  his  monks:  now  the 
reformed  Benedictines  of  Cluny  were  to 
redeem  it,  with  the  Christianized  Vikings 
of  Normandy  as  their  efficient  arm.  Origi- 
nally the  most  savage  of  peoples  they  had 
perforce  followed  their  Duke  Richard  when 
he  accepted  Christianity  in  961,  and  in  two 
generations  had  become  the  most  zealous 
and  active  adherents  of  the  Church.  In  the 
first  half  of  the  eleventh  century,  twenty 
great  monasteries,  including  three  of  world- 
[70] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

wide  influence  (Bee,  Fecamp,  and  Ju- 
mieges),  were  founded  in  Normandy  alone, 
and  into  Britain,  Italy,  Sicily,  the  Levant, 
streamed  the  Norman  adventurers,  light- 
heartedly,  high-handedly,  seizing  on  degen- 
erate counties  and  dukedoms,  cutting  out 
new  kingdoms  for  themselves  and  generally 
becoming  both  a  public  nuisance  and  an 
agency  of  regeneration. 

It  must  all  have  been  very  unpleasant  for 
the  upholders  of  the  ancien  regime,  the 
simoniacal  Popes,  absentee  bishops,  and 
married  or  profligate  clergy;  for  the  degen- 
erate feudal  lords,  the  faineant  kings,  and 
the  Emperors  both  of  the  West  and  the  East 
who  had,  as  they  thought,  safely  brought 
the  great  engine  of  the  Church  under  their 
direct  and  personal  control.  Never  was 
such  an  upheaval,  such  a  rattling  of  the  dry 
bones  of  wide  decrepitude  by  militant 
monks  hot  with  the  zeal  of  reform,  and 
Norman,  Prankish,  and  Flemish  adven- 
turers whose  headstrong  careers  were  em- 
bellished by  an  equally  headstrong  religious 
ardour.  In  the  end  Europe  proved  too 
small  for  the  exuberant  vitality  of  a  north 
that  suddenly  had  found  itself,  and  the  riot 
of  action  culminated,  just  as  the  century 
[71] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

closed,  in  the  astonishing  spectacle  of  the 
First  Crusade. 

Of  course  art  answered  to  the  exciting 
stimulus,  as  it  always  does  when  the  driving 
impulse  is  based  on  fundamental  things. 
Music,  from  about  1030,  developed  on  new 
and  brilliant  lines;  at  the  very  beginning  of 
the  century  nuns  in  their  Rhenish  cloisters 
were  writing  Latin  comedies;  in  Hildes- 
heim  and  Liege  the  arts  of  metal  achieved 
a  sudden  and  amazing  splendour,  sculpture 
began  its  recovery  in  the  south  of  France, 
while  architecture  opened  like  an  expand- 
ing flower,  not  only  in  Normandy,  but  in 
France,  Burgundy,  the  Rhineland,  and 
every  quarter  of  Italy  from  Lombardy  to 
Calabria  and  Sicily. 

Three  tendencies  show  themselves,  or 
rather  we  should  say,  three  schools  develop, 
for  the  tendency  of  all  was  at  first  the  same, 
though  one  of  the  schools  was  short-lived 
and  played  little  part  in  the  later  develop- 
ments of  the  other  two  which,  merged  at 
last,  furnished  all  of  Gothic  except  the 
vitalizing  spirit.  These  three  schools  were 
those  of  Tuscany,  Lombardy,  and  Nor- 
mandy. The  first,  which  was  sporadic  and 
of  very  brief  duration,  is  mysterious  and 
[72] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

almost  inexplicable,  and  is  represented, 
amongst  existing  buildings,  by  San  Miniato 
and  the  Baptistery  in  Florence,  and,  in  a 
measure,  by  Pisa  Cathedral.  This  work  is 
generally  included  under  the  generic  title 
"  Lombard,"  but  this  seems  to  me  a  mistake, 
for  it  is  structurally  and  aesthetically  dif- 
ferent from  the  true  Lombard  work  of  the 
same  period.  Certain  common  elements 
are  visible,  for  example,  qualities  that  are 
conspicuously  Syrian,  but  the  things  that, 
in  Lombard  architecture,  are  traceable  to 
Ravenna,  or  to  the  Comacine  guilds,  do  not 
appear  at  all.  Structurally  this  Tuscan 
work  is  static,  while  its  rival  is  constantly 
progressing  through  one  experiment  after 
another  until  it  arrives  at  a  point  where 
its  new  and  pregnant  devices  are  taken  over 
by  the  Franks  and  made  into  Gothic.  In 
craftsmanship  it  is  vastly  superior  to  the 
nascent  art  of  the  Lombards,  clean-cut,  deli- 
cate, classical,  while  its  inlaid,  polychro- 
matic ornament  is  in  a  class  by  itself.  You 
cannot  call  it  Ravennesque,  still  less  can 
you  call  it  Byzantine;  in  a  sense  it  is  classi- 
cal Greek,  though  strongly  modified  by  an 
Eastern  influence  and  adapted  to  the  new 
environment  of  a  Christian  society.  Bishop 
[73] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Hildebrand  began  San  Miniato  in  1013,  but 
there  is  no  record  of  the  name  of  the  master 
builder.  He  could  have  been  no  local  genius, 
for  no  building  exists  in  Tuscany,  or  has 
been  recorded,  that  resembles  it  in  the  least. 
It  is  not  a  direct  successor  of  the  Roman 
basilica,  for  it  shows  an  articulation  of  a 
high  order  and  is  manifestly  the  result  of 
many  generations  of  development.  It  bears 
not  the  slightest  relation  to  Toscanella,  and 
as  for  the  Comacini,  a  glance  at  Sant' 
Abondio,  Como,  exactly  contemporary  in 
date,  dispels  all  thought  of  authorship  on 
their  part.  It  seems  to  be  the  work  of  some 
Greek  artist  from  Syria,  for  with  its  divi- 
sion into  three  square  bays  of  three  arched 
openings  each,  separated  by  piers  carrying 
transverse  arches  across  nave  and  aisles 
alike,  it  has  a  close  resemblance  to  certain 
ruined  churches  of  the  diocese  of  Antioch 
of  a  period  antedating  the  work  of  Justinian 
at  Constantinople.  The  Florentine  Bap- 
tistery is  of  the  same  temper,  Syrian  Greek 
as  opposed  both  to  Byzantium  and  Ravenna; 
but  the  Duomo  of  Pisa,  while  Syrian  in 
plan  and  containing  many  Hellenic  quali- 
ties, is  also  touched  by  Lombard  influences. 
Pisa  is  the  direct  prototype  of  that  very  beau- 
[74] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

tiful  round-arched  style  of  the  Italian  thir- 
teenth century  which  is  the  true  "  Gothic  " 
or  Mediaeval  expression  of  Italy,  rather 
than  the  superficially  Gothic  incidents  that 
are  so  generally  unsuccessful  and  are  usu- 
ally taken  to  express  this  particular  period. 

This  combination  of  Greek  and  Syrian 
influences  is  what  one  would  have  expected, 
for  Constantinople  and  Syria  were  still  the 
leading  centres  of  culture  in  the  world, 
apart  from  the  Arabs,  who,  as  infidels,  were 
formal  enemies.  During  the  era  of  the 
Ottos  the  connection  between  the  Empire 
and  the  East  was  very  close,  while  southern 
Italy  was  still  an  appanage  of  Constanti- 
nople. The  Empress  Theophano  was  a 
daughter  of  the  Eastern  Emperor,  wife  of 
Otto  II  and  mother  of  Otto  III.  In  her 
train  came  artisans  and  artists  of  all  kinds 
from  Constantinople,  and  great  stores  of 
woven  and  embroidered  stuffs,  metal  work, 
and  carved  ivories.  Great  as  was  this  in- 
fluence from  the  Bosporus,  that  which  fil- 
tered in  from  Syria  was  of  equal  magnitude, 
and,  at  least  so  far  as  southern  France  was 
concerned,  even  more  penetrating  and  per- 
manent in  its  effects. 

All  through  the  Dark  Ages  Syria  was  the 
[75] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

most  fertile  and  wealthy  province  of  the 
Eastern  Empire  and  the  Syrian  merchants 
were  the  chief  Mediterranean  navigators. 
Through  Marseilles  and  Aries  these  mer- 
chants with  their  ivories,  stuffs,  jewels,  and 
wines,  worked  their  way  into  all  parts  of 
Gaul  and  even  into  the  valley  of  the  Rhine, 
making  permanent  settlements  not  only  in 
the  towns  of  Provence  but  in  Worms,  Metz, 
Cologne.  One  rather  gathers  from  St. 
Jerome  and  Salvianno  and  Gregory  of 
Tours  that  they  were  somewhat  of  a  nui- 
sance, as  they  were  clannish,  industrious, 
and  inordinately  avaricious.  Whatever 
wealth  there  was  seems  to  have  been  largely 
concentrated  in  their  hands,  but  at  least 
they  played  a  powerful  part  in  the  develop- 
ment of  art  when  it  began  to  recover  itself 
in  the  eleventh  century,  though  their  con- 
tributions were  purely  decorative,  and  had 
little  to  do  with  the  great  structural  revo- 
lution that  was  begun  by  the  Lombards, 
continued  by  the  Normans  and  completed 
by  the  French. 

Certain  of  these  decorative  importations 

may  well  be  the  norm  of  definite  Gothic 

devices,   as,  for  example,  crockets,  which 

were  long  supposed  to  be  Teutonic  in  their 

[76] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

origin,  but  which  are  to  be  found  in  Caro- 
lingian  illuminations  almost  copied  from 
such  Syrian  manuscripts  as  the  Rabula 
Gospels.  The  twin  flanking  towers  of  the 
west  front  of  churches  may  be  traced  di- 
rectly back  from  Coutances  and  York 
through  the  Norman  abbeys,  to  Como  and 
Sant'  Ambrogio,  and  through  ivories,  gems, 
and  miniatures  of  the  fifth  century  and  of 
Syrian  workmanship,  to  Syria  itself,  where 
they  form  the  established  type. 

The  second  school  is  that  of  Lombardy, 
interesting,  vital,  and  significant.  If  San 
Pietro,  Toscanella,  is  really  eighth  century 
even  in  part,  it  is  one  of  the  earliest  build- 
ings of  this  style,  though  its  strikingly 
beautiful  fagade  must  be  credited  to  a 
period  nearly  five  centuries  later  when  it 
attained  its  highest  point.  The  church  at 
Agliate  is  a  century  later  and  San  Vin- 
cenzo  in  Prato,  Milan,  of  the  same  date, 
i.e.  the  first  half,  of  the  ninth  century.  Then 
in  steady  progression  come  such  architectur- 
ally and  archaeologically  important  monu- 
ments as  Sant'  Eustorgio,  Milan;  Santo  Ste- 
fano,  Verona;  Sant'  Abondio,  Como;  San 
Flaviano,  Montefiascone;  and  Sant'  Ambro- 
gio, Milan.  Now,  the  earliest  of  these  are 
[77] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

of  the  Dark  Ages,  and  in  them  is  no  sign 
of  life  or  invention,  but  from  Sant'  Eus- 
torgio  onward  the  churches  I  have  named 
are  all  of  the  eleventh  century  and  in  one 
or  the  other  may  be  found  the  earliest  stages 
in  the  working  out  of  many  of  the  structural 
features  that  conditioned  the  Gothic  style 
of  architecture.  Here,  in  this  brief  space 
of  time,  we  may  find  the  full  development 
of  the  compound  pier  from  the  cylindrical 
column,  the  alternating  system,  the  concen- 
tration of  loads  and  thrusts  with  their  neces- 
sary buttresses,  the  pointed,  ribbed,  and 
domical  vault,  and  even  the  beginnings  of 
the  chevet  itself. 

This  development  of  the  original  ba- 
silican  plan  and  organism  until  it  finally 
culminated  at  the  hands  of  other  races 
and  far  in  the  north,  was  somewhat  as 
follows: 

The  supply  of  ancient  marble  columns 
being  exhausted,  circular  or  square  piers 
built  up  of  small  stones  were  substituted. 
At  about  the  same  time  arches  were  thrown 
across  the  aisles  from  each  pier  to  the  outer 
wall,  possibly  for  aesthetic  reasons,  more 
probably  for  purposes  of  stability.  In  any 
case  they  involved  the  addition  of  a  pilaster 
[78] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

to  the  pier  to  take  the  arch  on  its  inner  side, 
and  so  the  first  step  toward  the  compound 
pier  was  accomplished.  Next,  great  and 
high  arches  were  flung  across  the  nave, 
partly  for  stability,  partly  because  of  their 
beauty.  These  arches  were  either  on  every 
third  pier,  as  at  San  Miniato,  or  on  every 
alternate  pier.  In  either  case  an  additional 
pilaster  was  built  on  the  pier  that  bore  the 
nave  arch,  so  making  it  cruciform,  while 
the  intermediate  support,  having  less  work 
to  do,  was  made  smaller.  Thus  the  alter- 
nating system  of  the  late  Norman  and  early 
Gothic  was  begun,  while  the  scaffolding 
had  been  prepared  for  the  next  innovation, 
which  was  masonry  vaulting.  This  began 
first  in  the  small  areas  of  the  side  aisles,  and 
was  plainly  groined,  without  ribs.  Almost 
immediately  the  structural  convenience  of 
ribs  was  either  rediscovered  or  remem- 
bered from  the  Baths  of  Diocletian,  or 
copied  from  Syria,  and  after  this  the  whole 
scheme  of  Gothic  construction  was  inevi- 
table. The  ribs  made  elaborate  centring  no 
longer  necessary,  since  they  were  built  first 
and  then  the  spaces  simply  filled  with  thin 
stones  from  the  haunch  upward.  This  sim- 
plification made  the  high  vault  possible,  and 
[79] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

this  at  first  was  quadripartite,  or  just  the 
space  of  two  of  the  aisle  arches.  Which  was 
the  first  ribbed  and  pointed  nave  vault  is 
a  question  that  is  archaeological  rather  than 
architectural.  That  it  was  not  earlier  than 
1025  or  later  than  1075  we  are  reasonably 
sure.  The  vault  of  Sant'  Ambrogio  is  of 
the  year  1060  and  so  perfect  it  is  surely  not 
the  first.  Venturi,  Stiehl,  Lethaby  believe 
this  ribbed,  pointed,  and  domed  vault  to  be 
a  Norman  invention,  and  others  claim  that 
Durham  in  England  is  the  first.  It  does 
not  really  matter,  the  feat  had  been  accom- 
plished, and  that  is  really  all  we  need  to 
know. 

Already  we  have  a  definite  concentration 
of  loads  on  certain  points,  and  aesthetic  rec- 
ognition of  this  new  principle.  This  in- 
volved a  new  scheme  of  buttressing,  for 
while  the  thick  Roman  walls  of  the  aisles 
had  served  to  take  the  thrust  of  the  trans- 
verse aisle  arches,  the  nave  arches,  particu- 
larly when  stone  vaults  were  added,  were 
a  different  matter.  Naturally  the  first  step 
was  to  build  transverse  walls  across  the 
aisles,  piercing  these  with  arched  openings, 
as  at  Sant'  Ambrogio.  This  is  as  far  as  the 
Lombards  went;  the  flying  buttress  was  the 
[80] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

final  structural  refinement  of  the  Normans 
and  the  Franks. 

The  chevet,  the  development  of  which 
is  an  interesting  and  rather  special  story,  I 
shall  take  up  later.  The  Lombards  ven- 
tured a  few  tentative  steps  in  this  direction, 
but  the  real  work  was  apparently  done  far- 
ther north,  and  is  twelfth  century  rather 
than  eleventh. 

jEsthetically  the  Lombards  were  as  suc- 
cessful as  they  were  structurally.  The  great 
glory  of  the  style  they  had  initiated  was  to 
come  in  the  twelfth  century  in  the  churches 
of  Modena,  Pavia,  Parma,  Murano,  and  in 
the  thirteenth  century  in  Pisa,  Lucca,  Pis- 
toja,  but  even  in  the  eleventh  century  the 
self-restrained  simplicity  of  the  ordinary 
exteriors,  with  their  narrow  pilaster  strips, 
corbelled  cornices,  simple  round-arched 
windows,  and  primitive  apse  arcades,  is  very 
notable. 

It  is  an  interesting  and  a  significant  fact 
that  as  in  the  north  the  rebirth  of  culture 
and  civilization  is  directly  traceable  to  the 
great  spiritual  awakening  that  took  form 
and  shape  in  Cluny,  so  here  in  Italy  the 
growth  of  a  new  art  is  consonant  with  a 
similar  religious  revival,  stimulated  by 
[8iJ 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Cluny  itself,  though  following  a  somewhat 
different  and  less  permanent  form  of  devel- 
opment. Cluny  was  based  on  the  "  com- 
munity spirit "  and  was  made  up  of 
self-contained  groups  of  men  united  under 
one  rule.  In  Italy  the  horrors  of  the  tenth 
century  drove  thinking  and  righteous  men 
out  of  the  world  and  into  the  wilderness  as 
hermits,  and  though  the  influence  of  these 
pious  anchorites  was  enormous  it  was  per- 
sonal only  and  could  not  outlast  their  lives. 
St.  Nilus  of  Calabria  and  St.  Romuald  of 
Ravenna  are  types  of  the  holy  men  of  the 
time,  and  the  latter,  says  Villari,  made 
Ravenna  for  a  time  almost  a  rival  in  sanc- 
tity of  Cluny  itself.  Princes,  patricians,  a 
Doge  of  Venice,  St.  Adalbert  of  Bohemia 
(who  was  martyred  by  the  heathen  Prus- 
sians he  had  laboured  to  convert)  sought  in 
the  far  solitudes  release  from  the  intoler- 
able oppression  of  social  degeneration;  and 
they,  with  Gerbert,  Bishop  of  Ravenna 
after  998,  exerted  a  vast  influence  for  good 
on  the  second  and  third  Ottos  as  Holy 
Roman  Emperors.  St.  Romuald,  in  fact, 
had  hopes  of  inducing  Otto  III  to  renounce 
the  crown  of  empire  and  become  a  hermit, 
but  for  once  he  failed,  and  this  prince,  who 
[82] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

through  his  enlightenment  and  spiritual  fer- 
vour might  have  been  the  regenerator  of 
Europe  in  its  civil  aspect,  died  at  the  age 
of  twenty-two,  followed  two  months  later 
by  Pope  Sylvester,  Otto's  counterpart  in  the 
Church,  and  disorder  reigned  again.  The 
impulse  had  been  sufficient  however,  and 
now  in  Italy,  as  in  Normandy,  to  quote  the 
contemporary  monk,  Rudolf  of  Cluny,  "  It 
was  as  though  the  earth,  rousing  itself  and 
casting  away  its  ancient  vesture,  clothed 
itself  with  the  white  robe  of  churches." 

The  third  school  is  that  of  Normandy. 
It  owes  nothing  to  the  neo-Grec  episode 
of  Tuscany,  but  it  took  over  all  the  Lom- 
bard school  and,  striking  out  for  itself,  by 
the  vigour  of  the  new  northern  blood  and 
the  impulse  and  insistence  of  Cluny,  as- 
sembled it  all,  organized  it  in  a  splendid 
coherency,  carried  each  new  thing  to  a 
logical  conclusion,  supplemented  these  by 
additional  devices  of  the  highest  genius,  and 
finally  handed  the  whole  noble  work  to  the 
Franks  and  their  Cistercian  guides  to  be 
raised  to  the  highest  point  of  logical  articu- 
lation and  given  that  distinct  and  unique 
aesthetic  quality  that  fixed  in  everlasting 
form  the  Gothic  style. 
[83] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

In  searching  for  the  earliest  beginnings 
of  this  era-making  work  we  are  grievously 
handicapped  by  the  gross  and  wanton  sacri- 
lege of  the  French  Revolution.  Innumer- 
able great  works  of  the  noblest  art  suffered 
total  destruction  during  the  eighteenth 
century  anarchy;  amongst  them  three  of 
unique  value  both  artistically  and  archae- 
ologically:  Cluny,  Saint-Benigne  of  Dijon; 
and  Saint-Martin  of  Tours.  A  fourth  in 
the  sequence,  Jumieges,  was  also  shattered 
and  laid  desolate  by  the  same  sans- culottes, 
but  fortunately  still  remains  as  a  majestical 
ruin,  while  Cerisy-la-Foret  was  by  some 
miracle  overlooked. 

The  name  and  personality  of  the  first  of 
the  great  line  of  builders,  and  himself  the 
greatest  of  all,  are  known  and  should  be 
honoured  by  all  architects.  William  of  Vol- 
piano  was  born  in  961  on  a  little  island  of 
Lake  Orta  in  Italy.  When  very  young  he 
became  a  monk  of  Cluny,  then  at  the  age  of 
twenty-nine  Abbot  of  Saint-Benigne,  Dijon, 
and  a  few  years  later,  at  the  personal  solici- 
tation of  Richard  II  of  Normandy,  Abbot 
of  Fecamp.  Filled  with  the  most  ardent 
zeal  for  the  reformation  of  morals,  both 
secular  and  religious,  he  was  apparently  a 
[84] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

master  builder  —  or,  as  we  should  say, 
architect  —  of  amazing  ability.  The  lost 
abbey  of  Dijon  was  his  work,  also  the 
abbey  church  of  Bernay  (now  desecrated, 
partially  razed,  and  used  for  all  manner  of 
base  purposes),  Frutuaria  in  Italy,  and  a 
number  of  destroyed  and  less  important 
monuments.  The  original  abbey  church  at 
Mont-Saint-Michel  was  constructed  during 
his  lifetime  and  under  the  direction  of  his 
disciple,  Abbot  Hildebert  II;  Cerisy-la- 
Foret  by  the  famous  monk  Durandus,  also 
a  disciple,  and  by  Almodus,  who  had  been 
clerk  of  the  works  at  Mont-Saint-Michel. 
Jumieges,  if  not  his  actual  creation,  was 
built  under  his  influence  by  yet  another  apt 
pupil,  Robert  II,  then  abbot,  and  after- 
ward both  Bishop  of  London  and  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury.  Finally  the  preg- 
nant transitional  work  of  the  early  twelfth 
century  was  under  the  inspiration  of  Lan- 
franc,  who,  born  at  Pavia  in  1005,  became 
a  monk  of  Bee  in  1042,  only  nine  years  after 
the  death  of  William  of  Volpiano. 

The  loss  of  Saint-Benigne  is  irreparable: 

it  marked  the  first  advent  in  the  north  of 

the  Lombard  principles ;  it  formed  the  point 

of  contact  between  Italy  and  France,  and, 

[85] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

judging  from  its  foundations,  which  are  all 
the  revolutionists  have  left  us,  and  from 
most  defective  drawings,  it  was  an  unique 
stage  in  the  development  of  the  Gothic 
chevet.  It  was  a  T-cross  basilica,  with  apse 
and  flanking  absidioles;  a  great  circular 
church  or  rotunda  adjoined  it  to  the  east, 
and  by  two  rings  of  columns  was  divided 
into  a  central  well  with  two  vaulted  gal- 
leries, while  again  to  the  east  was  a  quad- 
rangular chapel  forming  the  tomb  of  the 
saint.  The  importance  of  this  building  can- 
not be  overestimated,  and  a  glance  at  the 
conjectural  plan  will  show  how,  in  the  year 
1002,  it  amazingly  foreshadows  the  fully 
developed  cathedral  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury. Undoubtedly  its  resemblance  to  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  in  Jerusa- 
lem links  it  also  with  the  school  of  Syria. 

Bernay,  constructed  in  1013,  is  the  true 
beginning  of  the  Norman  style,  lofty,  mas- 
sive, masculine:  a  Latin  cross  with  deep 
chancel  (instead  of  the  Italian  T-cross), 
with  compound  piers  and  archivolts,  ambu- 
latories in  the  thickness  of  the  walls,  and 
the  full  order  of  arcade,  triforium,  and 
clerestory,  though  the  triforium  arches  were 
later  blocked  up.  Mont-Saint-Michel  is 
[86] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

next  in  order,  and  proceeds  in  richness  and 
articulation  beyond  Bernay,  from  which  it 
was  copied,  while  here  for  the  first  time 
the  walls  are  reduced  in  thickness  and  but- 
tresses are  substituted  —  a  vital  change,  the 
significance  of  which  is  inestimable. 

Cerisy-la-Foret  and  Jumieges  supple- 
ment each  other,  for  in  the  former  the  west 
front  and  towers,  with  five  bays  of  the  nave, 
have  been  destroyed,  while  in  the  latter  the 
original  apse  was  supplanted  by  an  elabo- 
rate chevet  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and 
this  wholly  disappeared  at  the  Revolution, 
leaving  hardly  more  than  the  nave  and 
west  front  structurally  intact.  These  two 
churches  are  momentous  in  the  history  of 
architectural  development.  Cerisy  is  artic- 
ulated beyond  everything  achieved  before; 
it  is  a  Latin  cross  with  a  polygonal  apse, 
wide  transepts,  and  aisled  nave  and  choir. 
It  looks  to  be  of  the  same  date  as  Saint 
Georges  de  Boscherville,  and  therefore  later 
than  Jumieges,  but  this  does  not  help  us 
much,  since  it  is  not  sure  whether  the 
former  church  is  of  1050  or  mo.  It  cer- 
tainly is  more  delicate  in  design  than 
Jumieges,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  aisles 
and  triforia  of  Jumieges  are  vaulted,  which 
[87] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

is  a  sign  of  increasing  confidence  and  ability 
on  the  part  of  its  creators.  Rivoira  is  ex- 
plicit in  his  statement  that  it  was  conse- 
crated in  1032  and  that  Durandus  was  the 
architect:  on  the  other  hand  Rupricht 
Robert  dates  it  1150,  and  Porter  comes  be- 
tween with  a  guess  at  1130.  From  the  evi- 
dence of  the  building  itself  I  should  incline 
to  the  very  end  of  the  eleventh  century.  In 
any  case  it  is  a  very  noble  work  of  art  with 
many  elements  of  transcending  importance, 
e.g.  the  alternating  system  with  transverse 
nave  arches  at  every  other  pier,  the  apse 
with  three  stories  of  windows  and  wall  pas- 
sages at  the  two  upper  levels,  and  the  finely 
developed  square  central  tower.  If  it  is 
earlier  than  Jumieges,  it  is  the  first  church 
in  the  north  to  adopt  the  Lombard  trans- 
verse arches  across  the  nave,  —  the  first  step 
toward  the  Gothic  high  vault  and  the  sex- 
partite  form;  if  later,  then  the  same  is  true 
of  Jumieges,  which  was  certainly  built  in 
1040.  In  both  cases  all  the  previous  steps 
toward  the  development  of  the  Gothic  sys- 
tem have  been  brought  together,  while  the 
proportions  have  become  lofty  and  noble, 
the  parts  admirably  related,  and  the  whole 
infused  with  a  certain  poetical  quality 
[88] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

hitherto  unknown.  I  am  persuaded  that 
Jumieges  originally  had  alternating  trans- 
verse nave  arches,  like  Cerisy,  though  I  be- 
lieve no  one  has  suggested  this  before.  Its 
western  towers  are  of  extraordinary  beauty 
of  composition  and  outline,  but  the  end  of 
the  nave  between  is  crude  and  undeveloped 
and  is,  I  imagine,  something  left  over  from 
a  much  earlier  church. 

We  are  now  ready  to  go  on  to  the  de- 
velopment of  the  true  Gothic  style,  and  in 
doing  so  I  shall  deliberately  transfer  to  the 
next  lecture  consideration  of  the  Norman 
churches  of  Lanfranc  and  after,  for  even 
if  they  fall  within  the  eleventh  century  and 
are  in  themselves  the  crowning  of  the  Nor- 
man style,  they  are  also  precisely  those 
structures  in  which  the  principle  of  dead 
loads  is  being  transformed  into  that  of  con- 
centrated weights  and  living  thrusts,  there- 
fore an  essential  part  of  the  development 
of  the  earliest  Gothic. 

First,  however,  a  word  should  be  given  to 
two  other  local  types  of  architecture  in  this 
very  wonderful  eleventh  century,  though 
neither  ever  had  any  distinctive  influence 
in  the  later  and  perfected  art  of  Europe. 
These  are  the  Venetian  school  and  that  of 
[89] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

the  Rhine.  In  Venice  the  weaving  of  the 
"  white  robe  of  churches  "  gave  us  that  im- 
mortal concentration  of  beauty,  San  Marco, 
through  an  apparently  deliberate  rejection 
of  both  the  Ravenna  and  the  Lombard 
schools  and  a  return  to  Byzantium,  for  the 
church  itself  was  a  fairly  close  copy  of  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Apostles  of  Justinian. 
This  strong  Eastern  influence  persisted  in 
Venice  quite  through  the  Middle  Ages,  re- 
sulting in  a  local  architecture  of  exquisite 
beauty,  secular  as  well  as  religious.  By 
some  sport  of  fancy  the  same  model  was 
followed  at  Saint-Front,  Perigueux,  while 
the  Venetian  influence  extended  to  Padua 
on  the  mainland,  and  across  the  Adriatic  to 
the  Dalmatian  colonies.  Beautiful  as  it  all 
was  it  was  outside  the  line  of  European 
development,  and  whenever,  as  at  Padua, 
it  tried  to  adapt  itself  to  other  conditions 
it  lost  all  vitality  and  rapidly  died  in  a  con- 
dition of  dull  inertia.  Later,  in  Sicily, 
under  the  stimulating  influence  of  the  Nor- 
man conquerors,  similar  Byzantine  motives 
were  adopted  with  brilliant  results,  but 
here  also  the  effect  was  confined  within  the 
island  walls  and  did  not  extend  itself  either 
geographically  or  in  point  of  time. 
[90] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

In  the  Rhineland  the  year  1000  brought 
the  same  revival  that  it  miraculously  seemed 
to  confer  on  the  rest  of  Europe.  Otto  III 
was  emperor,  the  Italian  influence  increas- 
ingly powerful,  while  Cluny  was  as  opera- 
tive as  elsewhere.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
Syrian  element  was  strong  all  through  the 
Rhineland,  the  Empress-Mother,  Theo- 
phano,  had  all  the  love  for  beauty  of  her 
native  East,  while  much  of  the  Comacine 
work  of  Charlemagne  was  still  standing  as 
a  series  of  models.  In  general  the  eleventh 
century  building  was  not  notably  differen- 
tiated from  that  in  Lombardy,  Burgundy, 
and  Normandy,  and  such  a  church  as  St. 
Michael's,  Hildesheim,  is  quite  capable  of 
holding  its  own  with  the  best  these  countries 
could  show  during  the  first  quarter  of  the 
eleventh  century.  The  same  is  true  of 
St.  Maria  im  Capitol,  the  plan  of  which  is 
quite  unique,  with  apsidal  terminations  for 
the  choir  and  both  transepts  and  aisles  en- 
tirely encircling  all  three,  this  being  the 
first  record  of  aisles  carried  along  both  sides 
of  the  chancel  and  around  the  apse  as  well. 
The  apsidal  transepts  were  copied  once  or 
twice  later,  but  they  never  became  popular. 
This  is  true  of  all  the  Teutonic  contribu- 
[91] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

tions  to  contemporary  church  building. 
From  the  time  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Gall  it 
had  been  a  German  fashion  to  duplicate  the 
eastern  apse  at  the  west  end  of  the  church, 
and  sometimes  the  transept  also :  the  result 
was  a  composition  without  unity  or  focus, 
and  the  miscellaneous  collection  of  towers 
that  inevitably  followed  produced  a  chaotic 
and  unimpressive  effect  Nothing  of  this 
extended  itself  either  to  France  or  England, 
and  after  its  first  efflorescence  the  Rhenish 
style  froze  into  the  dull  severity  of  Speyer, 
Worms,  Mainz,  and  Coblenz,  a  severity 
that  broke  up  outside  into  an  unintelligent 
chaos  of  towers,  spires,  and  domes  encrusted 
with  mechanical  and  uninspired  detail. 

In  itself  the  church  building  of  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries  in  the  Rhine- 
land  lacked  all  spontaneity  of  structural 
development:  ingenious  in  devising  new 
combinations  of  apses,  towers,  and  arcades, 
it  contented  itself  with  this,  and  with  the 
construction  of  cathedrals  impressive  be- 
cause of  their  colossal  dimensions.  The 
universal  problem  was,  however,  the  per- 
fecting of  a  scheme  of  construction  that 
should  be  logical,  organic,  highly  articu- 
lated, and,  a  little  later,  economical.  All 
[92] 


THE    GREAT    AWAKENING 

the  materials  were  at  hand,  gathered  from 
Syria,  Ravenna,  Constantinople,  Rome ; 
they  had  been  analyzed,  assorted,  developed 
into  new  significance  and  assembled  into 
units  already  showing  a  life  and  movement 
unknown  for  five  centuries.  The  next  step 
after  development  of  detail  and  co-ordina- 
tion of  effort  was  creation,  and  high- 
heartedly  the  men  of  Normandy  and 
Burgundy  and  France  and  England  set 
themselves  to  their  task. 


[93] 


LECTURE   IV 
THE   EPOCH    OF   TRANSITION 

IN  my  last  lecture  I  considered  the  bril- 
liant achievements  of  the  first  great  builder 
of  the  eleventh  century  in  the  north,  Wil- 
liam of  Volpiano,  and  of  those  who  imme- 
diately carried  on  his  principles.  We  now 
must  turn  to  a  second  figure  of  equal  archi- 
tectural significance,  Lanfranc  of  Bee,  who. 
carried  still  further  the  .ideas  of  the  great 
master  and  was  his  immediate  and  most 
able  successor.  Like  William  he  was  an 
Italian,  born  in  Pavia  in  1005.  At  the  age 
of  thirty-four  he  went  to  Avranches,  where 
he  established  one  of  the  many  schools  of 
this  fertile  time,  but  almost  immediately 
abandoned  his  educational  work  for  the 
cloister,  and  became  a  monk  of  Bee  in  1042. 
The  result  was  momentous,  for  at  once  this 
minor  monastery  became  the  intellectual 
centre  of  Europe,  drawing  professors  from 
every  part  of  the  west,  and  students  in  such 
numbers  that  the  old  buildings  proved  in- 
[94] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

adequate,  and  were  at  once  replaced  by 
magnificent  new  structures  designed  by 
Lanfranc  himself  —  so  far  as  we  know  his 
first  essay  in  architecture. 

It  may  seem  to  you  that  I  disprove  my 
own  contention  when  I  admit  that  the  two 
great  architectural  masters  in  northern 
Europe  in  the  eleventh  century,  the  very 
men  who  took  over  the  Lombard  innova- 
tions and  not  only  co-ordinated  them  but 
gave  them  a  new  and  transcendent  character 
as  the  logical  steps  toward  an  inevitable 
Gothic,  were  not  men  of  the  north  at  all 
but  Italians,  and  you  may  say  therefore  that 
it  is  to  Italy  and  the  classical  south,  not 
to  Normandy  and  the  Catholic  north,  that 
credit  should  be  given  for  this  era-making 
work.  It  should  be  remembered,  however, 
that  the  real  creative  ability  in  Italy  was 
Lombard,  i.e.  of  that  region  where  the  old 
Latin  race  had  been  almost  wholly  super- 
seded by  northern,  and  semi-Norse,  semi- 
Teutonic  tribes,  and  that  William  of  Vol- 
piano  and  Lanfranc  were  both  undeniably 
of  this  alien  blood.  On  the  other  hand  it 
is  sure  that  this  northern  force,  so  vast  in 
its  vigour  and  potentiality,  would  never 
have  become  operative  but  for  the  fertiliz- 
[95] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

ing  power  of  the  indestructible  classical 
tradition  which  had  lain  fallow  through  the 
centuries  of  devastation,  only  to  assert  itself 
with  something  of  its  old  vigour  when  con- 
ditions had  become  favourable. 

It  is  impossible  too  strongly  to  emphasize 
the  persistence  and  the  beneficence  of  this 
classical  heritage,  which  from  time  to  time 
asserts  itself  through  alien  races  and  in  alien 
times.  It  came  with  power  in  the  tenth 
and  eleventh  centuries,  again  in  the  four- 
teenth and  fifteenth,  and  it  is  no  hard  task 
for  us,  today,  to  see  its  recrudescence  again 
after  the  powerfully  Teutonic  epoch  of  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries.  Ever 
since  the  Latin  tradition  was  apparently 
stamped  out  forever  under  the  trampling 
of  Teutonic  conquest,  it  has  been  those 
peoples  who  were  earlier  under  its  civiliz- 
ing influence  that  have  come  forward  as 
centres  of  culture  and  of  creative  force,  and 
of  social  dynamics.  Italy,  Spain,  France, 
Britain,  the  Rhineland,  all  are  coheritors  of 
the  classical  tradition,  and  Russia  herself 
owes  her  religion,  her  philosophy,  and  her 
art  to  that  eastern  Rome  on  the  shores  of 
the  Bosporus  that,  before  many  days,  may 
become  the  capital  of  a  restored  and  even 
[96] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

more  glorious  Byzantine  Empire.  The 
eastern  half  of  Germany,  Hungary,  and 
Scandinavia  are  the  only  countries  of  Eu- 
rope that  never  knew  in  any  degree  the 
influence  of  Latin  culture  and  civilization, 
and  the  lack  can  never  be  supplied  from 
any  human  source  whatever. 

Again,  we  may  admit  that  the  blood  of 
the  Mediterranean  races  had  exhausted 
itself  and  was  no  longer  able  to  utilize  its 
own  tradition.  Of  its  own  motion  the 
clean  blood  of  the  northern  tribes  could 
probably  have  done  little,  but  the  combin- 
ing of  the  two  forces,  raised  to  creative  ac- 
tivity by  the  inspiration  of  a  vital,  personal, 
and  beautiful  religion,  resulted  in  a  living 
force  of  unexampled  potentiality,  and  the 
result  was  the  culture  and  the  philosophy 
and  the  art  of  Medievalism. 

William  and  Lanfranc,  then,  were  the 
bearers  of  a  great  wonder  out  of  Italy,  but 
it  was  the  lusty  Normans  and  the  ardent 
Franks  who  gave  it  form  and  life. 

Not  one  stone  remains  on  another  of 
Lanf  ranc's  new  buildings  at  Bee,  and  of  his 
abbey  of  the  Trinite  at  Caen  only  the  crypt 
exists,  as  the  present  church  is  the  result 
of  a  rebuilding  half  a  century  later.  The 
[97] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

£ 

Abbaye  aux  Hommes,  or  St.  Etienne,  at 
Caen,  therefore  stands  as  Lanfranc's  first 
undoubted  work.  The  easterly  portion  was 
consecrated  in  1077,  the  western  in  1081, 
and  it  was  built  (together  with  the  original 
Trinite)  by  Duke  William  of  Normandy, 
the  "  Conqueror,"  in  expiation  of  some  of 
his  rebellions  against  ecclesiastical  inhibi- 
tions. There  is  a  tradition  that  the  second 
of  these  churches  records  the  remorse  of 
the  impulsive  duke  for  his  harshness  to  his 
Duchess  Matilda  in  parading  through  the 
streets  of  Caen  with  the  lady  tied  by  the 
hair  to  the  tail  of  his  horse,  as  an  evidence 
of  his  annoyance  at  her  domestic  conduct. 
This  story  probably  does  grave  injustice 
to  William  as  well  as  to  the  manners  of  the 
time,  even  though  these  were  more  forcible, 
direct,  and  unconventional  than  happened 
at  a  later  date. 

This  church,  while  following  generally 
the  type  of  Jumieges,  is  a  long  step  in  ad- 
vance, both  structurally  and  artistically.  It 
is  a  vast  Latin  cross,  with  a  high  and  fully 
developed  triforium  gallery  roofed  by  an 
half  barrel  vault,  compound  piers  of  richly 
multiplied  section  and  on  the  alternating 
system,  central  and  western  towers,  and,  for 
[98] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

the  first  time  (if  we  assign  to  Cerisy-la- 
Foret  its  probable  later  date)  a  conscious 
effort  at  giving  to  the  exterior  decorative 
architectural  quality  and  some  expression 
of  inner  organism.  For  the  first  time  also 
we  find  the  three  west  doors  given  an  archi- 
tectural character,  and  forming  the  first  step 
toward  the  ultimate  glory  of  the  typical 
French  west  portals.  The  crude  sexpartite 
vaulting  of  the  nave  is  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, for  while  Lanf  ranc  evidently  intended 
to  vault  his  church  throughout,  his  courage 
or  his  workmen  failed  him,  and  he  had  to 
be  content  with  a  wooden  roof,  possibly  with 
alternating  transverse  arches  as  at  Jumieges 
and  Cerisy.  St.  Nicholas,  Caen,  is  also 
Lanfranc's  work:  here  the  choir  was  actu- 
ally covered  by  ribless  cross  vaulting;  the 
triforium  is  much  reduced  in  importance, 
as  later  at  the  Trinite  in  Caen  and  Saint 
Georges  de  Boscherville,  and  finally — after 
a  reUirn  to  the  earlier  form  —  in  the 
standard  type  of  Gothic  church,  while  the 
architectural  treatment  of  the  exterior  is 
still  further  developed  in  articulation.  Saint 
Georges  de  Boscherville  is  of  the  same  genus 
and  follows  after,  probably  in  the  very  last 
years  of  the  century  or  the  first  of  the  next. 
[99] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

In  spite  of  the  most  shocking  "  restora- 
tions "  of  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century 
which  have  transformed  its  interior  into  a 
whitewashed  and  mechanical  horror,  Saint 
Georges  is  —  or  was  —  a  church  of  great 
nobility  and  finesse  of  proportion.  Its  ar- 
cade is  lofty  and  fine  in  form,  its  triforium 
low  and  cut  into  a  level  arcade  by  close-set 
shafts  and  narrow  arches;  the  tribunes  of 
the  transepts  are  beautifully  designed,  while 
the  exterior  is  admirable  in  mass  and  logical 
and  vigorous  in  detail.  The  apse  was 
originally  vaulted  with  a  simple  half-dome, 
and  the  choir  with  plain,  unribbed  cross 
vaulting;  the  present  nave  vault  is  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  but  originally  it  was 
spanned  by  great  arches,  not,  as  before,  on 
alternating  piers,  but  on  all,  so  forming  a 
stage  of  development  toward  the  oblong 
vaulting,  as  opposed  to  cross  vaulting  or 
sexpartite,  of  the  Gothic  church. 

It  is  in  England,  however,  that  Lanf  ranc's 
greatest  works  were  realized.  This  is  emi- 
nently fitting  since  the  successful  invasion 
of  England  by  his  duke  was  due  more  to 
him  than  to  anyone  else,  for  it  was  his  bril- 
liant mind  and  indomitable  will  and  soaring 
ambition  that  used  the  courage  of  William 
[  ioo  ] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

as  its  tool  and  in  the  end  made  of  him  a 
great  statesman  as  well  as  a  daring  adven- 
turer. To  England  Lanf  ranc  went,  now  as 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  there,  by 
the  year  1077,  he  had  built  a  new  cathedral, 
some  portions  of  which  still  remain  incor- 
porated in  the  vastly  extended  and  many 
times  rebuilt  metropolitan  church  of  Eng- 
land. Lanf  ranc's  work  was  evidently  more 
or  less  a  replica  of  St.  Etienne,  Caen.  St. 
Alban's  followed  immediately,  but  here 
native  workmen  were  apparently  used  for 
the  first  time,  and  everything  is  rude,  un- 
learned, and  primitive:  every  hint  of  Lom- 
bard craftsmanship  and  Norman  ingenuity 
is  absent;  old  materials,  Roman  and  British, 
are  used  over  again,  and  nothing  of  Nor- 
man genius  shows  itself  except  in  the  huge 
proportions  and  the  fine  directness  and  sim- 
plicity of  it  all.  Lincoln  and  Winchester 
were  built  at  the  same  time,  but  little  of  the 
original  work  is  left  after  the  many  re- 
buildings,  except  the  transept  of  the  latter, 
which,  though  ruder  than  the  work  in  Nor- 
mandy, is  rich  and  massive  in  its  pier  sec- 
tions and  sets  the  fashion  for  the  great 
abbeys  of  the  succeeding  century.  The 
eleventh  century  portions  of  Ely  show  im- 
[101] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

proved  craftsmanship  and  various  interest- 
ing minor  diversions  from  the  Norman 
type,  amongst  them  the  inclination  away 
from  multiple  piers  toward  the  great  cylin- 
drical shafts  of  stone  later  so  popular  at 
Durham,  Tewkesbury,  and  Gloucester.  It 
is  at  the  last  church,  and  also  at  Norwich, 
that  we  first  find  in  England  the  two-story 
ambulatories  around  the  choir,  with  a  small 
group  of  radiating  chapels. 

The  number  of  great  churches  built  in 
England  between  the  Conquest  and  the  end 
of  the  century  was  something  prodigious, 
and  their  dimensions  followed  suit.  The 
English  abbeys  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth 
centuries  were  the  largest  structures  in 
Christendom,  and  fine  as  they  were  when 
first  built  they  never  seemed  adequate,  but 
were  extended,  remodelled,  and  rebuilt  for 
two  centuries  after  a  most  extraordinary 
fashion.  In  their  fabulous  number  and 
their  unheard  of  dimensions  they  serve  to 
give  some  idea  of  the  part  played  in  the 
Middle  Ages  by  the  monks  who  made  them, 
and  of  the  place  religion  held  then  in  rela- 
tion to  the  people.  To  these  monastic  in- 
stitutions must  be  added  great  numbers  of 
cathedrals  and  parish  churches,  and  as  a 
[102] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

result  we  are  bound  to  realize  that  during 
this  entire  period  not  only  was  organized 
religion  the  chief  power  in  the  community 
and  the  State,  but  also  that  it  must  have 
been  the  intimate  and  personal  interest  of 
every  member  of  society.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  the  parish  was  in  England  the  social, 
and  in  many  ways  the  political,  unit.  In  the 
parish  councils  the  lord  of  the  manor  was 
hardly  more  than  one  of  his  tenants.  As 
the  chancel  belonged  to  the  parson,  so  the 
nave  was  the  property  of  the  people,  who 
were  bound  to  keep  it  in  repair  and  who 
were  as  jealous  of  their  duties  as  they  were 
of  their  privileges.  As  Bishop  Hobhouse 
says,  "The  parish  was  the  community  of  the 
township  organized  for  Church  purposes, 
and  subject  to  Church  discipline,  with  a 
constitution  which  recognized  the  rights  of 
the  whole  body  as  an  aggregate,  and  the 
right  of  every  adult  member,  whether  man 
or  woman,  to  a  voice  in  self  government." 
The  roots  of  liberty  and  free  democratic 
government,  as  these  have  come  down  to  us 
in  theory  (though  hardly  in  practice),  are 
to  be  found  far  deeper  in  the  old  parish  of 
the  Mediaeval  Church  than  in  Parliament 
or  folkthing  or  shire-mote. 
[103] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

From  Apostolic  days  down  to  a  few  cen- 
turies ago  the  Mass  was  for  all  Christians 
a  matter  of  holy  obligation,  and  in  every 
English  parish  church  Mass  was  said  daily, 
and  several  times  on  Sunday.  The  "  Chris- 
tian year "  also,  with  its  unending  round 
of  varied  festivals  and  fasts  and  its  com- 
memoration of  equally  varied  saints  (to 
some  one  of  whom  each  Christian  had  his 
own  personal  devotion),  interpenetrated  the 
lives  of  all  the  people  with  an  insistence 
and  an  individual  appeal  never  equalled 
before  or  since.  As  for  the  seven  Sacra- 
ments— Baptism,  Confirmation,  The  Lord's 
Supper,  Matrimony,  Penance,  Holy  Orders, 
and  Extreme  Unction  —  they  accompanied 
everyone  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  link- 
ing each  life  into  the  Christian  fabric  by 
indissoluble  bonds  and  giving  a  spiritual 
significance  and  sacred  character  to  every 
event  in  the  life  of  every  man. 

The  monasteries  were  never  more  than  a 
day's  journey  apart  in  any  direction,  and 
were  therefore  an  ever-present  element  in 
life.  With  the  cathedrals  they  were  the 
great  centres  of  art  and  beauty  in  every 
form,  more  than  adequately  taking  the  place 
of  the  art  galleries,  libraries,  opera  houses, 
[104] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

theatres,  and  "  movies "  of  the  present  day, 
since  in  them  art  was  alive,  operative,  and 
the  possession  of  all.  Each  had  some  shrine 
where  precious  relics  of  saints  or  martyrs 
were  venerated,  and  the  whole  country  was 
threaded  with  pilgrim  routes,  crowded  with 
devotees  who  were  apparently  as  jolly  as 
they  were  devout.  These  religious  houses 
were  the  greatest  landlords  in  the  realm  and 
their  tenants  were  envied  by  those  who  were 
under  secular  landlords,  since  they  them- 
selves were  more  generously  treated  in  every 
way.  Education,  mercy,  medical  science, 
charity,  hospitality,  and  all  the  arts  were 
centred  in  these  religious  houses,  which  also 
acted  as  trustees  and  guardians  for  orphans 
and  minors.  They  were  therefore  not  only 
necessarily  large  to  accommodate  the  monks, 
lay  brothers,  scholars,  guests,  and  servants, 
but  often  vast  because  of  the  enormous  part 
they  played  in  common  life  and  the  incred- 
ible throngs  that  came  to  them  for  worship 
and  to  claim  their  ministrations. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  think  back  into  such 
an  alien  spirit  and  time  as  this,  and  so  un- 
derstand how,  with  a  tenth  of  its  present 
population,  England  could  have  supported 
so  vast  and  varied  a  religious  establishment, 
[105] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

used  as  we  are  to  an  age  when  religion  is 
only  a  detail  for  many,  and  for  most  a  neg- 
ligible factor.  We  are  only  too  familiar 
with  the  community  that  could  barely  sup- 
port one  parish  church,  boasting  its  half- 
dozen  religious  organizations,  all  together 
claiming  the  adherence  of  only  a  minority 
of  the  population,  but  in  the  Middle  Ages 
religion  was  not  only  the  most  important 
and  pervasive  thing,  it  was  a  moral  obli- 
gation on  every  man,  woman,  and  child, 
and  rejection,  or  even  indifference,  was  un- 
thinkable. If  we  once  grasp  this  fact  we 
can  understand  how  in  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury the  whole  world  should  cover  itself 
with  its  "  white  robe  of  churches  "  and  why 
also  their  desecrated  ruins  should  so  often 
still  manifest  the  vestiges  of  the  greatest 
and  most  universal  art  the  world  has  ever 
known. 

This  work  of  William  of  Volpiano  and 
Lanfranc,  which  we  have  been  considering 
only  too  briefly,  is  of  course  very  rightly 
called  Norman;  but  I  think  it  a  mistake  to 
place  it  in  a  category  by  itself  and  treat  it 
as  an  intermediate  style  that  came  quite  to 
an  end  to  give  place  for  Gothic  as  a  new 
and  independent  creation.  Instead  of  this 
[106] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

sequence  of  quite  individual  styles  there 
was,  I  believe,  a  swift,  steady,  and  logical 
progress  from  William  of  Volpiano's  van- 
ished church  at  Dijon,  through  Jumieges, 
Caen,  and  the  English  abbeys  of  the  Nor- 
man Conquest,  to  St.  Denis,  Noyon,  Paris, 
and  Chartres,  and  so  to  the  full  flower  of 
Amiens,  Coutances,  Rheims,  York,  West- 
minster. The  impulse  was  one,  the  goal 
always  the  same,  but  from  time  to  time  new 
influences  were  brought  to  bear  on  the 
process,  and  at  one  definite  moment  these 
were  so  numerous,  so  potent,  and  withal  so 
novel  that  the  course  of  events  was  not  only 
accelerated  but  deflected  from  its  original 
course,  the  result  being  the  Gothic  style. 
To  appreciate  these  influences  we  must  con- 
sider for  a  moment  the  twelfth  century  in 
its  relation  to  its  predecessor  and  its  im- 
mediate successors. 

The  eleventh  century  burst  unheralded  on 
a  degenerate  and  hopeless  Europe,  but  the 
twelfth  was  the  onward  and  upward  rush 
of  that  unparalleled  energy  already  initi- 
ated and  foreordained  to  a  high  destiny 
hitherto  unequalled.  The  great  principle 
of  human  association  through  manageable 
social  units,  that  after  the  end  of  the  great 
[107] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

dream  of  world  empire  had  manifested 
itself  through  Benedictine  monasticism  and 
the  feudal  system,  now  extended  itself  even 
more  widely  and  took  shape  in  the  parishes, 
the  village  communes,  the  guilds  of  traders 
and  artisans,  the  great  schools  and  colleges, 
and  the  lay  orders  of  knighthood.  Every- 
where men  came  together  in  brotherhoods, 
both  secular  and  religious,  and  for  a  cen- 
tury or  more  Europe  was  organized  on  a 
socialistic  basis  which  is  the  only  possible 
model  for  similar  movements,  now  or  in  the 
future,  and  which  succeeded  just  in  so  far 
as  it  differed  from  our  own  contemporary 
socialistic  schemes,  vainly  designed  to  effect 
the  same  ends.  The  twelfth  century  was 
more  truly  democratic  than  any  society  be- 
fore or  since,  if  we  consider  democracy  to 
consist,  not  in  miscellaneous  machinery  and 
vicissitudinous  panaceas,  but  in  certain  ends 
of  right  and  justice.  Today,  abandoned  as 
we  are  to  the  frantic  invention  of  the  en- 
gines and  machinery  of  democracy,  and  to 
the  devising  of  novel  and  startling  nostrums 
for  the  curing  of  our  manifold  ills,  we  have 
wholly  lost  sight  of  democracy  itself  and 
have  even  forgotten  in  what  it  consists. 
Naturally,  therefore,  it  is  as  hard  for  us 
[108] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

to  comprehend  the  vital  democracy  of  the 
Middle  Ages  as  it  is  to  understand  the  part 
played  by  religion  in  the  civilization  of  the 
same  period.  Both,  however,  are  funda- 
mental, and  I  do  not  think  it  possible  for 
anyone  either  to  appreciate  or  to  understand 
the  art  of  the  time  without  some  recognition 
of  them  as  basic  facts. 

Perhaps  one  reason  why  the  democracy 
of  the  twelfth  century  was  so  successful  is 
that  it  never  failed  for  leaders,  since  de- 
mocracy without  high  personal  leadership 
is  a  dead  thing  that  can  end  only  in  anarchy, 
or  in  that  domination  by  the  worst  of  its 
elements  that  finds  its  nemesis  in  the  inevi- 
table reaction  to  despotism.  The  naming 
of  all  the  great  leaders  of  the  time  would 
run  to  the  term  of  this  lecture,  and  one  can 
do  no  more  than  note  a  few  in  each  cate- 
gory, as  for  example,  amongst  the  kings, 
Lothair  II,  Charles  the  Fat,  Henry  Plan- 
tagenet,  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,  Philip 
Augustus,  Roger  of  Sicily,  with  such  vivid 
female  personalities  as  Matilda  of  Tuscany, 
Eleanor  of  Guienne,  Blanche  of  Castile. 
Amongst  the  great  constructive  leaders  of 
thought  who  were  brilliantly  forging  the 
wonder  of  Catholic  philosophy  were  St. 
[109] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Anselm,  St.  Bernard,  Abelard,  William  of 
Champeaux,  Peter  Lombard,  Hugh  of  St. 
Victor.  In  religion  we  find  St.  Robert  of 
Molesme,  St.  Norbert,  St.  Thomas  a  Becket, 
Peter  the  Venerable,  with,  just  at  the  end 
of  the  century,  the  great  Pope,  Innocent  III. 
And  the  following  was  worthy  of  the 
leadership :  not  only  was  this,  as  I  have  said, 
the  era  of  the  guilds  and  communes,  the 
great  schools  and  universities,  the  military 
orders  of  knighthood,  it  was  also  the  age 
of  increasing  art  in  every  category:  of 
music,  through  the  trouveres  and  trouba- 
dours, and  the  chansons  de  gestes;  of  poetry, 
through  the  forming  in  final  shape  of  the 
legends  of  Arthur  and  of  the  Holy  Grail; 
of  architecture,  through  the  transforming 
of  Norman  into  Gothic.  If  ever  the  elan 
vital  rose  to  inordinate  heights  of  untram- 
melled creation,  it  was  then ;  and  this  vivid 
vitality  seemed  to  overflow  itself  in  every 
category  of  mental  and  physical  and  spirit- 
ual activity.  The  development  of  the  sys- 
tem of  sacramental  or  Catholic  philosophy 
is  a  sufficient  exemplar  of  the  first,  the 
career  of  the  Norman  adventurers  of  the 
second,  while  the  Cistercian  reformation  is 
typical  of  the  third.  It  is  only  now,  in  these 
[no] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

last  days,  while  our  own  chosen  system  of 
evolutionary  philosophy  is  falling  in  ruins 
around  us,  that  we  are  beginning  to  think 
back  beyond  Herbert  Spencer,  beyond 
Kant,  beyond  Descartes,  beyond  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  himself,  to  that  very  wonderful 
system  that  finds  perhaps  its  best  exposition 
in  Hugh  of  St.  Victor,  and  to  discover  there, 
in  the  midst  of  the  twelfth  century,  a  body  of 
illuminating  philosophy  that  is  to  the  Chris- 
tian world  what  Plato  was  to  paganism. 
As  for  the  bodily  activity  of  inordinate 
adventure,  there  is  nothing  more  stimulat- 
ing than  the  story  of  the  Hautevilles,  the 
eight  sons  of  a  poor  gentleman  of  Nor- 
mandy, five  of  whom  proved  themselves 
conquerors  of  the  first  degree,  winning  in 
Sicily  and  southern  Italy  estates  for  them- 
selves as  well  as  thrones,  now  and  again,  for 
their  descendants.  Of  course  all  their  com- 
peers were  doing  the  same  sort  of  thing;  — 
conquering  England,  the  Holy  Land,  even 
gaining  the  throne  of  the  Eastern  Empire; 
but  the  hardy  Hautevilles  are  the  best  ex- 
ponent of  Norman  force,  since  they  show 
how,  in  a  single  family,  the  ardour  of  ac- 
tion is  not  confined  to  one  alone  but  extends 
itself  through  all. 

[in] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Of  the  Cistercian  reformation  I  must 
speak  more  at  length,  since  it  was  the  chief 
agent  in  effecting  the  change  from  the  Nor- 
man to  the  Gothic  principle  in  architecture. 
Monasticism,  of  the  type  established  it 
would  seem,  once  for  all,  by  St.  Benedict 
of  Nursia  in  the  sixth  century,  is  an  essen- 
tial element  in  Christian  civilization,  re- 
curring ever  and  again  when  the  things 
against  which  it  contends  have  achieved 
supremacy  and  brought  society  to  the  point 
of  ruin.  In  the  sixth,  the  eleventh,  and  the 
sixteenth  centuries  it  had  its  most  brilliant 
manifestations,  and  already  it  is  preparing 
again  for  its  identical  office  of  social  regen- 
eration. It  is,  however,  human  in  its  con- 
stitution, and  subject  to  the  general  law  of 
degeneration,  therefore  it  is  constantly  laps- 
ing from  its  ideals,  its  standards,  and  its 
prescribed  modes  of  action.  If  its  work 
is  not  accomplished  before  this  inevitable 
retrogression  sets  in,  then  another  order 
comes  into  existence  to  continue  the  labour 
under  a  new  impulse  of  righteousness.  The 
work  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  not  accom- 
plished before  the  Order  of  Cluny,  that  had 
made  the  Normans  the  most  potent  forces 
in  Europe,  surrendered  to  the  gravitational 

[113] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

peril  of  the  world,  and  became  rich,  self- 
indulgent,  morally  lax.  By  the  end  of  the 
eleventh  century  the  Benedictines  of  Cluny 
had  made  the  art  they  had  re-created  a 
thing  of  luxury,  splendour,  and  inordinate 
expense.  Cathedrals,  abbeys,  and  churches 
were  vast,  massive,  elaborate  in  design,  opu- 
lent in  sculpture  and  colour  and  gold.  The 
vestments  for  the  sacred  offices,  the  altar 
vessels  and  ornaments,  the  Mass  books  and 
shrines  and  reliquaries  were  of  a  Byzantine 
luxury  in  their  wealth  of  gold  and  silver 
and  precious  stones.  Art  took  the  place  of 
ethic;  ease  and  luxury  and  license  came  in 
the  stead  of  self-denial,  holy  poverty,  and 
missionary  zeal.  Nevertheless  the  work 
was  only  half  done;  therefore  St.  Robert 
of  Molesme  was  moved  to  a  reform  that 
should  be  a  return  to  Apostolic  righteous- 
ness and  zeal,  the  Order  of  Citeaux  being 
the  result.  It  was  a  glorious  return  to  the 
Benedictinism  of  St.  Benedict  himself,  and 
at  once  old  men  and  young  flocked  to  the 
Cistercian  monasteries  in  such  numbers  that 
fathers  and  mothers  and  wives  tried  to  hide 
or  place  under  restraint  the  boys  and  men  of 
their  families  in  order  that  they  might  not 
yield  to  the  overwhelming  call  of  the  clois- 
[113] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

ter.  Within  a  few  years  of  the  founding, 
St.  Bernard  became  a  monk  of  the  new 
order,  and  then  the  situation  became  worse, 
for  now  men  were  neither  to  hold  nor  to 
bind,  and  secular  society  was  decimated. 
The  result  was  not,  however,  what  might 
have  been  feared  by  the  eugenists  of  the 
time  (if  there  were  any),  for  the  imposi- 
tion of  the  law  of  celibacy  on  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  the  best  of  both  sexes  could  not 
depress  the  standard,  and  character  waxed 
even  finer  and  more  vigorous  for  several 
generations. 

The  effect  on  architecture  was  immedi- 
ate and  fundamental:  hitherto,  with  all  its 
magnificence  it  had  been  structurally  static, 
a  style  of  inertia.  In  the  Roman  basilica 
the  principle  of  dead  loads  held  practically 
throughout,  for  the  thrust  of  the  narrow 
aisle  arches  was  negligible,  that  of  the  tri- 
umphal arch  taken  up  by  the  lateral  walls 
of  the  transept,  that  of  the  dome  of  the  apse 
by  its  own  thick  walls.  The  domical  church 
of  the  East  was  indeed  active  in  every  part, 
but  with  little  concentration  of  thrusts,  and 
the  varied  and  incessant  push  was  met  by 
counteracting  masses  of  inert  masonry  and 
walls  of  enormous  thickness.  The  same 
[114] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

principles  held  in  Normandy  and  England : 
as  arches  widened  in  span  the  walls  grew 
thicker  and  more  massive,  the  abutments 
more  ponderous.  With  the  adoption  of 
cross  vaulting  of  masonry  the  resulting  con- 
centration of  weight  and  thrusts  was  ignored 
and  the  intervening  wall  areas  were  thick- 
ened equally  with  the  local  abutments. 
Five-foot  walls  became  almost  a  minimum, 
and  the  thickness  was  sometimes  increased 
up  to  eight  or  ten  feet.  Of  course  the  re- 
sult was  the  necessity  of  providing  huge 
masses  of  masonry,  expensive  in  themselves 
and  very  tempting  to  carvers  and  decorators. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  these  vast  and 
massive  structures  have  a  power  and  dig- 
nity all  their  own,  —  as,  for  example,  Peter- 
borough, Ely,  Durham,  —  and  they  were 
so  well  liked  that  in  England  they  gener- 
ally resisted  the  advent  of  the  new  Gothic 
fashion  of  construction,  while  accepting  its 
outward  forms,  and  for  this  reason  English 
Gothic  achieved  little  of  the  structural  logic 
and  economy  of  France.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  magnificent  Norman  style  was 
intolerable  to  the  Cistercian  puritans,  and 
at  their  instigation  the  master  builders  of 
the  time  strove  to  find  a  solution  that,  while 
[115] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

sacrificing  nothing  of  beauty,  should  yet 
reduce  the  initial  cost.  The  success  of  this 
effort  was  triumphant,  but  it  was  due  to 
the  entrance  into  the  field  of  a  new  racial 
element  different  alike  from  the  Italianized 
Lombards  of  the  south  and  the  Christian- 
ized Vikings  of  Normandy.  This  new  ele- 
ment was  that  of  the  Franks  of  the  He  de 
France,  who,  under  the  spur  of  the  Cister- 
cians, brought  to  bear  on  the  structural 
problem  the  acute  intellect,  the  creative  in- 
genuity, and  the  unfailing  logic  that  were 
their  everlasting  contribution  to  the  great 
and  glorious  unity  we  know  as  the  French 
people.  Under  their  hands  architecture 
was  made  over,  for  their  quick  wit  and 
ready  ingenuity  soon  showed  them  that  by 
concentrating  loads,  thrusts,  and  abutments 
they  could  reduce  the  bulk  of  their  masonry 
by  half,  and  furthermore,  that  there  were 
certain  physical  laws  that  might  be  discov- 
ered by  experiment,  if  not  on  a  priori 
grounds,  and  that  these  laws  might  be  used 
to  determine  lines  of  energy,  weights  of 
resistance,  and  factors  of  safety.  In  a  word 
they  brought  pure  science  to  bear  on  the 
question,  not  as  master  but  as  servant,  in 
which  respect  they  differed  radically  from 
[116] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

the  devotee  of  science  of  today.  In  time 
the  whole  thing  turned  into  a  game,  and 
the  master  builder  became  obsessed  by  his 
science,  to  the  peril  of  his  art  as  well  as  of 
his  buildings  themselves,  but  for  an  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  the  just  balance  was 
maintained  before  Beauvais  closed  the 
chapter  in  calamity. 

The  ribbed  and  pointed  vault  had  already 
been  worked  out,  and  so  had  the  two  forms 
of  sexpartite  vaulting,  in  the  abbeys  of 
Caen.  The  next  step  was  the  adoption  of 
the  oblong  vault  area.  In  the  Abbaye  des 
Dames  the  vault,  though  comparatively  late, 
is  undeniably  a  survival  of  the  earliest  form 
of  high  vault,  for  it  is  simply  a  great  inter- 
secting vault  of  equal  sides,  the  transverse 
crown  being  reinforced  and  supported  by 
an  arch  with  its  spandrels  filled  in  by  a  thin 
wall  of  stone  —  manifestly  an  evidence  of 
doubt  on  the  part  of  the  builders  as  to  the 
stability  of  so  large  a  quadripartite  vault 
as  is  necessary  to  span  a  nave  always  twice 
the  width  of  the  aisle.  Incidentally  it  is 
also  a  first  step  to  the  oblong  area.  The 
vault  of  the  Abbaye  aux  Hommes  is  a 
clumsy  approach  to  the  true  sexpartite 
vault,  for  here  the  masonry  springs  back 
[117] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

on  either  side  from  the  intermediate  wall 
to  meet  the  main  curves  of  the  square 
vault,  so  forming  exterior  wall  surfaces 
into  which  an  arched  window  would  ac- 
commodate itself  without  offence.  Of 
course,  as  soon  as  the  oblong  areas  which 
naturally  followed  from  the  perfected  sex- 
partite  form  were  generally  adopted,  the 
alternating  system  was  given  up,  and  the 
regular  order  of  Gothic  columniation  de- 
termined for  all  time.  Simultaneously  the 
device  of  stilting  was  introduced,  whereby 
sharply  pointed  arches  were  avoided  and 
the  full  thrust  of  the  vault  brought  to  bear 
along  a  single  vertical  line  above  the  vault 
shafts  —  a  thing  as  beautiful  as  it  was  me- 
chanically perfect,  for  it  resulted  in  that 
warping  of  the  vault  surfaces  which  is  one 
of  the  most  subtle  charms  of  French  Gothic 
architecture. 

The  problem  of  receiving  these  concen- 
trated thrusts  had  been  partially  solved  in 
Normandy:  the  old  Roman  device  of  huge 
masses  of  masonry,  or  rather  transverse 
walls,  adopted  at  Sant'  Ambrogio,  had  been 
abandoned,  and  in  his  Abbaye  aux  Hommes 
Lanf  ranc  had  substituted  the  half  of  a  barrel 
vault  running  the  length  of  the  aisle  and 
[n8] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

abutting  against  the  nave  wall.  This  was 
effective  but  illogical,  for  only  a  small  part 
of  the  buttressing  arch  received  any  thrust 
whatever.  Almost  immediately,  therefore, 
as  in  the  Abbaye  des  Dames,  the  intervening 
areas  were  cut  away  and  only  the  arch  at 
each  pier  remained.  This  of  course  was  a 
true  flying  buttress,  but  it  was  still  concealed 
below  the  aisle  roof,  hence  the  clerestory 
was  restricted  in  height  to  the  wall  area 
of  the  vault  alone.  At  Noyon,  about  the 
middle  of  the  century,  and  apparently  for 
the  first  time,  the  abutting  arch  emerged 
into  the  open  air  and  the  flying  buttress  with 
all  its  possibilities  had  come  into  its  own. 

We  have  now,  you  will  perceive,  nearly 
all  the  elements  of  the  Gothic  organism :  the 
cruciform  plan  with  wide  transepts  and 
deep  choir,  the  vertical  order  of  arcade, 
triforium  and  clerestory,  pointed  arches, 
ribbed  and  stilted  vaults  with  oblong  com- 
partments, concentrated  loads  and  thrusts, 
direct  abutments,  with  the  flying  buttress 
in  posse,  and  the  intervening  walls  reduced 
by  half  in  thickness;  articulation  expressed 
by  compound  piers  and  arches,  with  vault 
shafts  well  grounded  from  vault  to  floor, 
lofty  proportions,  complex  compositions  of 
[119] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

light  and  shade.  All  this  has  worked  itself 
out  in  the  interior  of  the  church;  outwardly 
little  change  is  apparent,  for  Gothic  growth 
was  exclusively  from  within  outward,  as  it 
was  essentially  a  logical  and  an  organic 
growth.  We  have,  it  is  true,  even  at  Jumi- 
eges,  the  great  west  towers,  with  the  other 
over  the  crossing  always  favoured  in  Nor- 
mandy and  therefore  in  England  even  to  the 
end  of  the  Middle  Ages,  but  apart  from 
such  large  and  general  forms  the  exterior, 
even  of  almost  fully  developed  Gothic  struc- 
tures, still  remains,  to  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses, that  of  a  Norman  church. 

In  the  meantime  the  great  architectural 
idea  of  the  chevet,  or  polygonal  apse  with 
its  single  or  double  encircling  aisle  and 
radiating  chapels,  forming  as  it  does  the 
great  structural  and  artistic  glory  of  the 
style,  and  the  point  where,  intellectually, 
all  the  vivid  logic  of  the  French  master 
builders  shows  itself  at  its  highest  per- 
fection, had  been  slowly  evolving  after 
a  curiously  entertaining  fashion.  When 
the  domical  church  of  Constantinople, 
Ravenna,  and  Aix-la-Chapelle  was  finally 
superseded  by  the  western  and  more  ancient 
basilican  plan,  it  was  not  wholly  abandoned, 

[120] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

for  its  possibilities  were  too  great.  First 
of  all,  the  final  form  of  a  domed  polygon 
surrounded  by  a  vaulted  aisle  with  shallow 
projecting  bays  or  apses,  was  cut  in  halves 
and  added  to  the  cross-shaped  basilica;  then 
it  was  subjected  to  the  process  of  concen- 
tration, articulation,  and  scientific  refine- 
ment that  was  taking  place  in  the  remainder 
of  the  fabric,  and  we  obtain  the  astonishing 
sequence:  a  Roman  calidarium,  Bosrah, 
Ravenna,  Aix-la-Chapelle,  St.  Martin  at 
Tours,  St.  Germer  de  Fly,  St.  Denis,  Char- 
tres,  Amiens,  and  Le  Mans.  A  very  inter- 
esting, evidence  of  the  plausibility  of  this 
theory,  not,  I  think,  heretofore  noted,  is  the 
apse  of  the  abbey  church  at  Essen,  dated 
about  1040,  which  is  simply  three  sides  of 
Charlemagne's  chapel  at  Aix  applied  to  the 
end  of  a  Romanesque  basilican  church.  We 
still  lack,  of  course,  the  Gothic  spirit  as  it 
showed  itself  aesthetically,  and  without  this, 
no  matter  how  highly  developed  may  be  our 
Gothic  structural  form,  we  have  not  the 
whole  of  Gothic,  for  this  is  a  spirit  as  well 
as  an  organic  system  of  building.  The  ef- 
fort has  been  made  —  as  I  believe,  both 
unwisely  and  unsuccessfully  —  to  confine 
the  word  "  Gothic "  exclusively  to  that 
[iar] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

work  which  is  perfect  in  its  structural  sys- 
tem and  its  organic  form,  according  to  the 
highest  point  reached  at  any  time  in  these 
directions.  This  mechanistic  and  even 
pedantic  method  of  criticism  is  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  type  of  analytical  and  mate- 
rialistic mentality,  and  I  doubt  if  it  can 
maintain  itself  much  longer.  Gothic  con- 
struction is  indeed  the  most  highly  articu- 
lated, the  most  vividly  intelligent,  and  the 
most  scientifically  exact  ever  devised  by 
man,  but  it  is  only  a  part  of  Gothic  archi- 
tecture, which  is  as  well  the  expression  of 
an  entirely  new  social  and  devotional  spirit, 
engendered  by  a  peculiar,  beneficent,  and 
dynamic  energy  in  the  world  of  the  west, 
and  expressed  through  new  forms  of  beauty 
that  have  no  historic  prototypes.  The 
greatest  Gothic  monuments  are  such  as 
Chartres  and  Amiens  and  Rheims,  but  all 
other  structures,  whether  civil  or  secular, 
produced  between  1 150  and  1400  under  the 
influence  of  Mediaeval  culture,  by  the  races 
of  the  north,  are  equally  Gothic,  whether 
the  full  structural  system  is  present  in  all 
its  integrity,  or  only  indifferently,  or  even 
not  at  all. 

The  sequence  of  development  as  recorded 
[122] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

in  existing  buildings  is  approximately  this: 
Bury,  St.  Leu  d'Esserent,  St.  Germer  de 
Fly,  St.  Denis,  after  which  Gothic  is  fully, 
firmly,  and  finally  developed.  The  space 
of  time  involved  is  from  1125  to  1140,- 
surely  the  most  astonishing  fifteen  years  in 
architectural  history.  In  the  nave  of  Bury, 
begun  in  1125,  we  find  the  pointed  arch 
used  consistently,  with  ribbed,  stilted,  and 
oblong  vaults,  all  handled  clumsily  and  with 
hesitation,  but  with  undoubted  conviction. 
St.  Germer  de  Fly,  begun  five  years  later, 
is  almost  as  amazing  a  portent  as  was  Jumi- 
eges  for  its  own  time,  for  it  was  appar- 
ently without  a  prototype,  yet  here  we  find 
all  the  elements  of  Bury  handled  with  per- 
fect assurance,  and  as  well  a  complete  ar- 
ticulation of  shafting,  a  chevet  very  well 
worked  out,  the  second  story  gallery  re- 
duced to  the  limits  of  a  true  triforium,  and 
all  the  loftiness  of  line  and  grace  of  propor- 
tions that  we  associate  with  perfected 
Gothic.  Its  flying  buttresses  are  still  con- 
cealed below  the  triforium  roof,  therefore 
the  clerestory  is  largely  blank  wall  with 
small  pointed  windows  confined  between 
the  spring  and  the  crest  of  the  vaults.  Out- 
wardly the  church  is  still  sturdily  Norman. 
[123] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Five  years  later  the  great  Abbot  Suger 
built  his  fine  new  Abbey  of  St.  Denis,  leav- 
ing us,  fortunately,  a  brilliant  and  enthusi- 
astic account  of  his  aims  and  his  methods. 
The  church  was  consecrated  in  1140;  it 
was  immediately  followed  by  Sens,  Noyon, 
Paris,  and  Laon,  and  stands,  therefore,  as 
marking  the  point  when  the  vital  new  tend- 
ency reached  its  fulfilment  and  Mediaeval- 
ism  achieved  its  perfect  form  of  expression. 
Of  the  original  work  of  Suger  only  the  west 
front  and  the  ambulatories  of  the  chevet 
remain,  for  a  century  later  all  the  rest  of 
the  church  was  rebuilt  in  the  fully  devel- 
oped Gothic  manner,  forming  one  of  the 
great  examples  of  the  perfected  style.  From 
what  remains,  however,  and  from  the  ad- 
mirable old  abbot's  proud  narrative,  it  is 
evident  that  at  last  all  sense  of  hesitation 
and  uncertainty  had  disappeared;  Bury  and 
St.  Germer  de  Fly  took  their  places  as  the 
last  of  the  Norman  mode  in  which  the  spirit 
of  the  new  Gothic  was  working  hiddenly; 
St.  Denis  itself  crossed  the  dividing  line  and 
became  the  first  of  the  great  sequence  of  the 
monuments  of  Catholic  Christianity  that 
ended  only  with  the  advent  of  the  new 
paganism. 

[124] 


THE    EPOCH    OF    TRANSITION 

It  was  not  that  any  new  devices  were  in- 
troduced, for  there  were  none  to  be  dis- 
covered ;  it  was  rather  that  the  power  that 
was  working  for  self-expression  at  last  ac- 
quired its  adequate  master  craftsmen  who 
worked  now  with  confidence  and  convic- 
tion, with  a  high  intelligence  irradiated  by 
a  kind  of  divine  inspiration,  refining  and 
perfecting,  articulating  and  co-ordinating 
all  that  a  century  of  devoted  and  progres- 
sive effort  had  brought  to  their  hands. 
Now  first  the  Gothic  spirit  bores  itself 
through  from  within,  outward,  the  last  of 
the  old  static  Norman  is  consumed  away, 
and  the  great  progress  begins  that  was  to 
find  its  apotheosis,  just  an  hundred  years 
later,  in  the  Cathedral  of  Our  Lady  of 
Rheims,  destined  to  stand  in  all  its  unap- 
proachable majesty  century  after  century, 
while  the  spirit  that  had  created  it  died 
away  amongst  men  and  the  new  power  in 
the  world  worked  its  will  amongst  all  na- 
tions and  all  peoples;  destined  at  last  to  be 
given  into  the  hands  of  those  who  best  had 
learned  the  lesson  of  this  new  power  and 
applied  its  methods,  who  blasted  it  with 
their  own  consummate  engines  of  destruc- 
tion and  left  it  shattered,  scorched,  and 
[125] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

desecrated,  but  with  its  eternal  fabric  still 
intact.  Even  so,  under  the  same  assaults, 
the  everlasting  power  that  brought  it  into 
being  still  stands,  shattered,  scorched,  and 
desecrated,  but,  like  Rheims,  ultimately  in- 
destructible, and  destined  again  to  redemp- 
tion and  regeneration. 


[126] 


LECTURE   V 
THE   MEDIAEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

I  HAVE  tried  in  the  last  two  lectures  to 
show  how,  first  in  Lombardy,  then  in  Nor- 
mandy, and  all  within  the  limits  of  a  cen- 
tury, the  essential  structural  elements  of  a 
potential  Gothic  were  being  invented  or  re- 
discovered, until  at  last,  under  Lanfranc, 
the  material  was  assembled  and  made  ready 
for  that  finger-touch  of  creative  vitality  that 
was  to  transform  a  casual  assembling  into 
coherency,  and  transfigure  it  with  a  new 
spirit  of  unexampled  power  and  of  beauty 
unapproachable.  In  the  same  way,  as  I 
have  endeavoured  to  make  clear,  an  identi- 
cal process  was  being  followed  in  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  society.  Out  of  equal  dark- 
ness came  equal  light,  and  this  new  day 
made  possible  the  artistic  transformation 
that  was  now  to  take  place.  Feudalism  had 
created  a  new  society  made  up  of  human 
units  linked  by  the  human  bonds  of  per- 
sonal attachment  and  reciprocal  duties  and 
[127] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

privileges.  Out  of  this  admirable  social 
scheme  came  an  added  impulse  toward  the 
ideals  of  service,  obedience,  loyalty,  honour, 
chivalry.  Monasticism  had  grown  from  a 
protest  into  a  world-wide  agency  of  service, 
rebuilding  the  ruined  fabric  of  education 
and  art,  creating  anew  a  vast  but  always 
human  agency  of  charity,  mercy,  and  hos- 
pitality. The  guild  system,  working  on 
from  self-protecting  alliances  of  traders, 
had  extended  itself  to  every  existing  form 
of  industry  and  commerce,  always,  as  in 
other  domains,  of  human  and  manageable 
scale,  until  the  workman  held  a  position  of 
self-respect  and  of  independence,  with  an 
assurance  of  just  and  certain  compensation, 
such  as  he  had  never  held  before  and  has 
failed  to  achieve  since.  In  the  south,  where 
the  lingering  tradition  of  a  dead  imperial- 
ism prevented  the  normal  development  of 
feudalism,  the  crescent  spirit  of  independ- 
ence and  co-operation  made  itself  visible 
through  the  free  communes  or  city-states, 
where  again  the  basis  of  association  was 
human  in  its  scale  in  place  of  the  vast 
material  aggregate  of  force  and  military 
power  of  the  preceding  epoch,  and  of  the 
vague  abstractions  of  political  dogmatism, 
[128] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

philosophical  theory,  and  empty  shibbo- 
leths of  that  which  was  to  follow. 

The  ardent  and  restless  spirit  of  the  north 
had  opened  up  new  lines  of  pilgrimage  and 
adventure  through  Europe,  across  the  Med- 
iterranean, into  the  mysterious  fastnesses  of 
Africa,  Arabia,  Syria,  the  Levant,  even  into 
the  frozen  north  of  the  heathen  tribes,  and 
the  wonder  of  a  doubly  mysterious  Asia. 
The  crusades  had  stirred  the  spirit  of  Nor- 
mandy, Flanders,  France,  the  Rhineland, 
England,  and  opened  up  new  possibilities 
of  adventure,  conquest,  treasure,  commer- 
cial gain,  while  the  paynim  principalities 
in  the  south  and  the  decadent  empires  of 
the  East  were  a  living  incentive  to  the  ex- 
panding vigour  and  the  overriding  ambi- 
tion of  the  uncontrollable  races  of  the  north. 

With  the  humanizing  of  society  came  an 
identical  humanizing  of  religion  and  of 
philosophy.  During  the  patristic  days  the 
Church  had  been  so  busy  in  determining 
in  exact  form  the  verbal  symbols  of  essen- 
tial dogma,  and  in  beating  down  one  plau- 
sible heresy  after  another,  that  the  natural 
process  of  devotional  development  had  been 
held  back,  and  the  latent  humanism  in  the 
original  deposit  of  the  Faith  came  but 
[129] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

slowly  into  view  and  operation.  For  five 
centuries,  however,  the  humanizing  process 
had  been  going  on,  and  by  the  opening  of 
the  thirteenth  century  the  Church  had 
adapted  its  system  of  worship  to  the  eternal 
and  unchangeable  demands  of  the  human 
soul,  until  it  met  these  at  every  point.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  anything  novel  in 
doctrine  was  added;  it  was  rather  that  new 
spiritual  possibilities  were  revealing  them- 
selves through  dogmas  and  practices  exist- 
ing from  the  beginning,  and  that  new  forms 
of  devotion  grew  up  to  intensify  the  appeal 
of  doctrines  that  dated  from  the  time  of  the 
Apostles  themselves.  For  example,  the  in- 
vocation of  the  saints  and  prayers  for  the 
dead  are  recorded  even  in  the  catacombs 
and  were  a  part  of  original  Christianity; 
now,  however,  the  new  impulse  of  human 
and  personal  relationship  took  hold  of  the 
ancient  doctrines  and  established  a  sense  of 
intimate  kinship  between  the  individual  on 
the  one  hand  and  the  hierarchy  of  angels 
and  archangels,  the  saints  and  martyrs,  the 
dead  of  every  family,  on  the  other.  This 
new  spiritual  intimacy  served  to  bring  the 
divine  and  the  unseen  down  closer  to  earth, 
while  lifting  man  and  his  common  life  into 
[130] 


THE    MEDIAEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

closer  communion  with  the  whole  company 
of  heaven.  In  the  same  way  the  Mass  had 
been,  certainly  since  the  post- Apostolic  age, 
both  Communion  and  Sacrifice;  now,  how- 
ever, the  latter  quality  was  increasingly  em- 
phasized and  the  inevitable  corollary  of  the 
sacramental  presence  of  Christ  in  the  con- 
secrated species  resulted,  in  the  time  of 
Charlemagne,  in  the  clear  enunciation  of 
the  doctrine  of  Transubstantiation,  though 
the  final  definition  was  not  to  be  determined 
for  many  centuries. 

An  identical  process  was  going  on  in 
philosophy,  whereby  the  aloof  and  abstruse 
orientalism  of  the  Eastern  and  Alexandrian 
schools,  and  the  massive  yet  precise  intel- 
lectualism  of  St.  Augustine,  were  being 
fused  in  a  comprehensive  sacramentalism 
that  was  at  the  same  time  definitive,  since 
it  was  an  intellectual  approximation  to  an 
intelligible  exposition  of  the  fundamental 
law  of  all  life,  and  of  unusual  appeal 
through  its  perfect  adaptation  to  the  needs 
and  desires  and  aspirations  of  the  human 
soul.  This  singularly  human  yet  equally 
exalted  philosophy  seems  to  me  to  find  its 
full  flower  in  Hugh  of  St.  Victor,  with 
St.  Anselm  and  St.  Bernard  as  particular 
[131] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

exponents  of  certain  of  its  more  limited 
aspects. 

The  dominating  influence,  then,  which 
determines  and  emphasizes  Medievalism, 
is  a  very  real  humanism  that  is  in  fact  the 
antithesis  of  that  fictitious  humanism  of  the 
Renaissance  which  has  usurped  the  name. 
It  moulds  and  transmits  and  fixes  in  definite 
form  every  thought  and  action  of  the  time, 
and  is  as  fundamental  in  controlling  artistic 
development  as  in  establishing  the  nature 
of  the  religion,  the  philosophy,  the  social 
system  of  the  Middle  Ages.  While  it  re- 
sulted in  the  most  perfectly  balanced 
scheme  of  life  that  is  of  record,  it  was  by 
its  very  nature  peculiarly  susceptible  of 
abuse.  As  the  inevitable  tendency  of  mys- 
ticism is  ever  further  and  further  away 
from  the  earth  into  the  impalpable  ether, 
until  Hugh  of  St.  Victor  is  merged  into 
St.  Bonaventure  and  so  into  Hildegarde  of 
Bingen  and  Fritz  Thauler:  as  the  inevitable 
tendency  of  pure  intellectualism  is  from  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  ever  lower  and  lower 
through  Calvin  and  Herbert  Spencer  to  the 
impossible  nadir  of  Haeckel,  so  the  tend- 
ency of  humanism  is  toward  that  disas- 
trous point  when  all  spiritual  things  are 
[132] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

reduced  to  the  level  and  scale  of  man  him- 
self and  there  is  no  longer  any  distinguish- 
ing between  the  two.  Then  comes  anthro- 
pomorphism, the  debasing  of  worship  to 
the  level  of  a  series  of  charms  and  formulae, 
the  purchase  and  sale  of  sacraments,  indul- 
gences, dispensations;  the  invention  of  crude 
and  vulgar  devotions,  with  loss,  in  the  end, 
of  spiritual  consciousness  and  even  of  the 
very  sense  of  right  and  wrong. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  much  of  all  this  re- 
vealed itself  progressively  through  the  lat- 
ter Middle  Ages,  and  what  had  been  its 
glory  became  its  shame.  As,  however,  you 
cannot  judge  monasticism  after  the  nine- 
teenth century  fashion,  from  its  incidents 
and  episodes,  and  final  estate  of  degrada- 
tion, but  rather  by  its  great  epochs  when  it 
was  in  the  full  flower  of  its  splendour  and 
beneficence,  so  you  cannot  judge  the  Middle 
Ages  from  their  decadence.  What  they 
became  after  1305  when  the  secular  power 
regained  control  of  religion,  does  not  con- 
cern us  here.  The  architecture  we  are  con- 
sidering was  the  exponent  of  the  culture 
and  civilization  of  Medievalism  while  it 
was  still  young  and  vigorous,  or  in  its  ma- 
jestic maturity.  This  period  lasts,  roughly, 
[i33] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

from  the  year  1000  to  1300,  a  space  of  three 
centuries,  one  half  of  which  is  the  era  of 
youth  and  endeavour,  one  half  of  accom- 
plishment and  an  only  too  brief  supremacy 
before  the  inevitable  decline. 

I  may  confess  now  what  you  already  will 
have  discovered,  viz.:  that  I  have  under- 
taken an  impossible  task  in  endeavouring 
to  concentrate  into  six  hours  not  only  the 
art  of  six  centuries  but  as  well  something 
of  the  spirit  and  the  power  that  lay  behind 
it.  I  can  now  hardly  more  than  refer  in 
the  most  superficial  way  to  the  pregnant 
events  of  this  amazing  time,  leaving  those 
of  you  who  are  interested,  perhaps,  to  find 
in  Henry  Osborne  Taylor's  "  The  Mediae- 
/  val  Mind,"  Dr.  Walsh's  "The  Thirteenth 
Greatest  of  Centuries,"  and  Henry  Adams's 
"  Mont-Saint-Michel  and  Chartres,"  the 
secret  revealed,  as  in  no  other  books  I  know, 
of  the  dynamic  force  that  took  shape  in  a 
system  of  life  and  thought  the  perfect  ex- 
pression of  which  is  the  art,  and  especially 
the  architecture,  of  the  central  century  of 
the  Middle  Ages. 

Two  hundred  years  of  varied  monastic 
influence  toward  righteousness  had  at  last 
resulted  in  a  redemption  of  the  Papacy  that 
[134] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

made  it,  through  the  great  pontiff,  Inno- 
cent III,  the  controlling  power  in  Europe, 
and  Innocent  himself  a  kind  of  spiritual 
Lord  of  the  World.  All  kings  were  ulti- 
mately subject  to  him,  even  Philip  Augus- 
tus of  France,  whose  domestic  irregularities 
wrought  an  issue  between  them  that  was 
salved  only  by  royal  surrender.  As  Inno- 
cent was  followed  by  such  worthy  succes- 
sors as  Gregory  IX  and  Boniface  VIII, 
so  Philip  of  France  was  followed  by 
Louis  VIII  and  St.  Louis,  the  last  of  whom 
has  well  been  called  "  the  ideal  of  a  loyal 
knight  and  a  Christian  king."  And  there 
were  great  kings  in  all  the  world :  Frederick 
Barbarossa,  Frederic  II,  Edward  I,  Robert 
Bruce,  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  Ferdinand 
III,  Alphonso  the  Wise.  Learning  and  edu- 
cation ascended  by  leaps  and  bounds;  the 
universities  rapidly  made  themselves  a 
greater  force  than  the  monasteries  that  had 
created  them,  and  philosophy,  through  Al- 
bertus  Magnus,  Duns  Scotus,  Roger  Bacon, 
Raymond  Lully,  Alexander  Hales,  and, 
greatest  of  all,  perhaps  the  most  supreme 
intellect  of  all  time,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
reached  a  height  of  almost  inconceivable 
achievement.  Arts  that  had  struggled 
[135] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

toward  the  light  during  the  preceding  cen- 
tury reached  their  culmination,  and  arts 
long  forgotten  were  born  again.  The  union 
of  music  and  poetry  at  the  hands  of  the 
meistersingers  and  minnesingers  and  of 
those  of  the  creators  of  the  great  Latin 
hymns  (the  latter  a  new  art  altogether) 
lifted  both  arts  to  new  and  exalted  levels, 
while  pure  music  became  perfected  in  the 
Gregorian  mode.  In  Siena  and  Florence 
painting  was  reborn  in  Duccio,  Cimabue, 
and  Giotto,  while  sculpture,  restored  in 
France  a  century  before  the  Pisani  in  Italy, 
achieved  a  fruition  that  placed  it  on  the 
same  plane  as  that  held  by  the  sculpture  of 
Hellas.  So  this  incredible  century  pro- 
ceeds, and  at  the  end  all  is  gathered  to- 
gether in  Dante,  the  eternal  synthesis  of 
Medievalism. 

Great  as  was  the  thirteenth  century  in 
constructive  statesmanship,  in  the  fixing  of 
the  principles  and  the  laws  of  civil  liberty, 
in  philosophy,  and  in  the  development  of 
all  the  arts  (whether  the  old  arts  of  paint- 
ing and  sculpture  and  poetry  or  the  new 
of  stained  glass,  hymnology,  illumination), 
its  achievement  in  architecture  was  in  some 
ways  the  most  notable,  perhaps  because 
[136] 


THE    MEDIAEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

what  happened  there  epitomizes  all  that 
was  done  elsewhere,  and  the  nature  of  what 
was  accomplished  is  precisely  that  which 
informed  the  whole  body  of  Mediaeval 
achievement. 

We  have  seen  how  nearly  all  the  struc- 
tural elements  of  Gothic  already  had  been 
brought  into  being;  what  remained  was  the 
Gothicizing  of  it  all,  the  giving  it  essen- 
tial Gothic  quality.  This  may,  I  think, 
be  divided  under  three  heads,  Cohesion, 
Economy,  and  Character.  The  first  means 
knitting  everything  together  synthetically, 
giving  it  a  certain  dynamic  power  to  grow 
from  within  outward  in  accordance  with 
clear  laws  and  under  one  impulse,  and 
finally  making  structure  itself,  not  only  effi- 
cient as  such,  but  beautiful  in  itself,  the 
central  fact  and  force  in  the  style,  all  or- 
nament of  every  kind  being  something 
added,  but  growing  inevitably  from  it. 
Economy  means  the  discovery  of  physical 
forces,  using  them  in  such  a  way  that  they 
work  either  together  or  in  intelligent  and 
effective  opposition,  so  making  possible  the 
reduction  of  columns,  walls,  arches,  but- 
tresses, vaults,  to  a  logical  minimum,  but 
always  with  regard  to  that  optical  mini- 
[137] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

mum  which  prevented  a  reduction  in  bulk 
below  a  certain  point,  even  if  a  further 
diminution  would  be  structurally  safe,  since 
the  mind  must  be  satisfied,  through  the  eye, 
and  the  physical  test  could  not  be  consid- 
ered as  final.  Character  is  the  hardest  thing 
to  define,  but  in  a  way  the  most  significant. 
It  is  the  quality  that  makes  a  thing  Gothic 
whether  its  structural  system  is  of  the  per- 
fectly developed  type  or  not.  It  is  what 
the  glass  of  Chartres,  the  sculpture  of 
Amiens,  the  pictures  of  Giotto,  the  Hora 
Novissima,  the  High  History  of  the  Holy 
Grail,  all  possess  in  common  with  the  great 
cathedrals,  and  in  so  full  a  degree  that  they 
may  all  be  called  Gothic,  or  Mediaeval,  or 
if  you  like  Catholic.  Singly  and  together 
they  are  the  creation  and  the  expression  of 
the  one  epoch  when  Catholicism  interpene- 
trated all  life  to  such  an  extent  that  no 
single  portion  of  society  except  the  Jews, 
the  Mohammedans,  and  the  as  yet  uncon- 
verted tribes  of  Prussia,  were  outside  its 
scope  or  beyond  its  influence  and  control. 
Character  means  for  us  difference  in  qual- 
ity, and  this  is  both  material  and  spiritual. 
Saint  Georges  de  Boscherville  has,  for  ex- 
ample, almost  as  many  Gothic  elements  in 
[138] 


THE    MEDIAEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

its  construction  as  the  Cathedral  of  Sens, 
but  the  one  is  essentially  Norman  in  char- 
acter, the  other  just  as  essentially  Gothic. 
The  character  of  the  mouldings  in  Cerisy 
is  of  one  type,  that  of  Noyon  absolutely  dif- 
ferent, and  the  same  is  true  of  the  scheme, 
the  material,  and  the  detail  of  design.  The 
ornament  of  the  later  Norman  and  Roman- 
esque is  rich  and  elaborate  beyond  Gothic 
comparison,  until  the  fifteenth  century,  but 
it  differs  as  completely  from  that  of  Char- 
tres  or  Amiens  or  Lincoln  as  it  does,  on  the 
other  hand,  from  that  of  Greece.  The  plac- 
ing of  ornament,  also,  is  wholly  different, 
and  a  new  theory  of  composition  grows  out 
of  a  new  energy. 

What  is  it  that  determined  all  this,  and 
in  thirty  years  gave  to  architecture  a  new 
character  that  it  retained  for  nearly  three 
centuries?  It  is,  I  think,  that  sudden 
achievement,  by  certain  peoples,  of  their 
majority.  Into  the  golden  chalice  of  life 
are  poured,  from  a  score  of  flagons,  the 
streams  of  living  water;  little  by  little  the 
chalice  brims  higher  and  higher,  and  at  last 
-  at  one  moment  it  is  full  but  continent,  at 
the  next  it  overflows.  Blood  of  the  North, 
religious  fervour  and  devotion,  a  new  and 
[139] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

fine  economic  system,  a  stimulating  philos- 
ophy, liberal  education,  personal  freedom, 
sense  of  honour,  chivalry,  service,  all  as- 
semble to  the  filling  of  the  cup,  and  between 
1150  and  1175  it  brims  to  the  full,  runs 
over,  and  a  new  stylistic  epoch  in  architec- 
ture is  accomplished. 

Behind  and  through  it  all  is  the  new 
humanism.  Our  Lady  and  the  saints  are 
friends  and  defenders,  and  their  service  is 
the  pleasure  and  the  duty  of  chivalry.  The 
world  is  seen  to  be  very  beautiful,  with  its 
flowers  and  its  birds  and  kind  little  beasts 
of  the  woods.  Personal  allegiance  and 
friendship,  and  an  almost  mystical  rever- 
ence for  women  bind  all  kinds  and  classes 
with  close  bonds.  Men  are  free,  and  as 
freemen,  brave  and  laborious:  the  guilds 
make  all  work  honourable  and  give  each 
man  his  chance  of  self-expression  and  emu- 
lation. All  environment  is  beautiful,  all 
costumes  full  of  life  and  colour,  men  are 
imbued  with  the  beauty  and  the  splendour 
of  religious  and  secular  ceremonial,  ugly 
things  disappear  and  more  and  more  lovely 
things  take  their  place.  Unconsciously  men 
have  come  to  like  good  things  and  to  make 
only  good  things,  and  the  race  —  not  the 
[140] 


THE    MEDIAEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

patron,  the  amateur,  or  the  isolated  artist, 
—  expresses  its  own  and  intimate  self. 

In  the  last  lecture  I  came  with  you  down 
to  that  final  quarter  of  the  twelfth  century 
where  at  St.  Denis  and  Sens,  Gothic  archi- 
tecture had  shown  itself  in  all  its  potential 
force:  from  them  we  go  straight  to  Notre 
Dame  in  Paris;  for  here,  working  from  east 
to  west,  we  can  see  the  process  of  complete 
development. 

The  great  church  was  begun  in  1 163,  only 
twenty  years  after  St.  Denis,  the  choir  of 
course  coming  first,  and  the  work  gradu- 
ally extending  itself  westward  until  the 
fagade  with  its  towers  was  finished  in  its 
present  state  in  1235.  The  plan  is  fine, 
clear,  and  well  articulated,  but  the  vertical 
order  is  and  always  was  defective.  It  fol- 
lows the  Norman  Abbaye  aux  Hommes  and 
has  a  lofty  vaulted  gallery  in  place  of  the 
low  triforium  of  the  Abbaye  des  Dames, 
and  is  in  this  sense  inferior  to  the  somewhat 
earlier  Sens  where  the  triforium  is  of  very 
great  beauty.  In  Notre  Dame,  again,  cylin- 
drical columns  are  used  for  the  nave  arcade 
throughout,  the  vaulting  shafts  resting  on 
their  caps.  I  have  never  understood  why 
this  device  —  a  distinct  retrogression  in 
[  141 1 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

point  of  articulation  —  should  be  so  much 
admired  by  critics.  At  Sens  this  stopping 
off  the  vault  shafts  occurs  only  on  the  in- 
termediate columns,  which  is  admirable, 
since  there  the  scheme  is  alternating  and 
the  vault  sexpartite,  the  piers  carrying  the 
transverse  ribs,  and  therefore  the  major  part 
of  the  weight,  perfectly  expressing  their 
function  by  being  divided  into  five  colo- 
nettes,  each  of  which  takes  a  member  of 
the  group  of  vault  ribs,  grounding  them  all 
solidly  at  the  pavement.  The  perfect  sys- 
tem is  of  course  that  at  Chartres,  and  almost 
invariable  thereafter,  i.e.  a  smaller  circular 
shaft  with  four  attached  colonettes,  one 
reaching  from  floor  to  vault  and  carrying 
the  transverse  rib,  one  performing  the  same 
function  in  the  aisle,  with  those  on  either 
side  taking  the  inner  ring  of  the  moulded 
arches  of  the  arcade.  The  colonettes  that 
take  the  diagonal  ribs  of  the  high  vault 
are  either  stopped  on  the  top  of  the  ar- 
cade cap,  or  better  still  at  the  base  course 
of  the  triforium,  while  the  longitudinal 
ribs  find  their  support  at  the  clerestory 
level. 

The  nave  must  have  been  finished  about 
1196,  and  in  1210  the  west  front  was  begun 
[142] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

and  completed  in  fifteen  years.  About  1230 
there  was  a  serious  conflagration,  and  at 
that  time  the  novel  but  unbeautiful  round 
windows  above  the  triforium  in  each  bay 
were  cut  out  to  allow  the  lengthening  of  the 
clerestory  windows,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  original  and  fine  scheme  of  double  but- 
tressing in  the  chevet  was  abandoned  for 
the  irrational  and  inorganic  flying  buttresses 
leaping  both  aisles,  and  grieving  the  logician 
as  much  as  they  excite  the  admiration  of  the 
tourist.  These  same  preposterous  buttresses 
are  one  of  the  first  evidences  of  the  inevi- 
table danger  that  lurked  in  the  scientific 
proficiency  of  the  French,  who  were  always 
trying  for  some  new  structural  wonder  and 
only  desisted  when  Beauvais,  which  they 
had  pushed  even  beyond  the  limits  of  rea- 
son, collapsed  in  ruin,  and,  after  an  humili- 
ating bolstering  up  by  additional  supports, 
remained  a  vast  fragment  as  the  monument 
to  overriding  ambition.  Impossible  as  they 
are,  these  buttresses,  or  rather  these  but- 
tress pinnacles,  are  examples  of  the  most 
exquisite  detail  to  be  found  in  the  style,  and 
here  again  we  find  a  premonition  of  the 
fate  in  store  when  the  integrity  of  construc- 
tion was  lost  and  Gothic  became  the  riot 
[i43l 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

of    marvellous    decoration    that    is    called 
Flamboyant. 

Between  1245  and  1250  the  nave  chapels 
between  the  buttresses  were  constructed  - 
another  serious  error  in  judgment  —  and 
the  transepts  were  pushed  outward  a  bay, 
while  at  the  very  end  of  the  century  the 
apsidal  chapels  were  built,  the  ambulatory 
originally  having  no  chapels  whatever. 
Notre  Dame  stands  as  a  living  record, 
therefore,  of  all  stages  of  Gothic  during  its 
first  period,  but  no  portion  can  match  the 
west  front  which  marks  the  culmination  of 
the  style.  It  is  perhaps  the  noblest  archi- 
tectural conception  of  man,  classical  in  its 
simplicity,  its  matchless  proportions,  the 
brilliancy  of  its  design,  the  perfect  scale  of 
its  detail,  the  subtle  rhythm  of  its  delicate 
variations. 

Amongst  the  other  great  cathedrals  es- 
sentially of  the  twelfth  century  we  find 
Noyon,  Laon,  Senlis,  Poitiers,  Bourges,  and 
Chartres.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  them 
now,  for  each  deserves  a  lecture  by  itself. 
Infinite  in  their  variety,  they  are  all  under 
the  same  inspiration.  Laon  has  its  perfectly 
proportioned  plan  and  its  great  scheme  of 
seven  clustering  spires;  Soissons  has  its 
[144] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

wonderful  south  transept  which  Porter 
calls  "  one  of  the  most  ethereal  of  all 
twelfth  century  designs  and  the  highest  ex- 
pression of  that  fairy-like,  Saracenic  phase 
of  Gothic  art  that  had  first  come  into  being 
at  Noyon."  As  for  Bourges,  it  is  unique, 
and  to  me  the  finest  Gothic  interior  in  the 
world,  with  its  vast,  transeptless  nave,  its 
five  aisles,  and  its  pyramidal  system  of  arch- 
ing that  lifts  the  nave  arcade  half  as  high 
again  in  proportion  as  in  any  other  church, 
its  glimmering  forest  of  shafts  vanishing 
above  in  luminous  shadow.  Chartres  of 
course  remains  in  the  end  the  noblest  work 
of  Gothic  art,  even  though  almost  every 
other  church  excels  it  in  some  single  point. 
In  spite  of  the  bewigged  canons  of  the 
eighteenth  century  who  desecrated  its  choir 
with  cheap  imitation  marbles  and  its  sanc- 
tuary with  a  riotous  high-altar  that  looks 
like  a  Broadway  burlesque,  and  then 
smashed  some  of  the  matchless  windows  in 
order  that  the  world  might  see  the  results 
of  their  stupendous  crime  —  in  spite  of  this 
Chartres  remains  less  wrecked  within  by 
bigotry,  revolution,  the  vulgarity  of  the 
eighteenth  and  the  restorations  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  than  any  other  of  the  great 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

cathedrals,  and  it  still  retains  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  its  original  glass,  which  is  to  this 
art  what  the  west  front  of  Notre  Dame  is 
to  architecture  —  its  final,  perfect,  and  di- 
vinely inspired  word.  Add  to  this  blazing 
vesture  of  apocalyptic  splendour  the  south 
tower  of  the  west  front,  an  unparalleled 
model  of  serene  design,  inscrutable  propor- 
tions, and  just  composition;  the  porches  of 
the  transepts,  which  have  no  prototypes,  no 
rivals,  no  possible  successors,  but  stand  as 
the  revelation  through  some  unknown 
master-masons  of  all  that  is  final  in  in- 
spired design,  and  finally  the  sculpture, 
west,  north,  south,  which  leaves  no  further 
word  to  be  said  in  the  sensitive  adaptation 
of  this  art  to  architecture,  —  combine  all 
these  and  add  a  certain  poignant  spiritual 
aroma  of  the  chanted  worship  and  the  old 
incense  and  the  ascended  prayers  of  seven 
centuries,  and  you  have  a  thing  that  almost 
transcends  experience  and  can  only  be  ana- 
lyzed by  Huysmans,  only  put  into  burning 
words  by  so  consummate  a  lover  and  artist 
as  Henry  Adams. 

The    thirteenth    century   goes    on    from 
Bourges  and  Chartres  without  a  break  to 
Coutances,  Amiens,  and  Rheims.     It  goes 
[146] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

on  to  innumerable  other  masterpieces  as 
well,  in  England,  Flanders,  Spain,  for  de- 
spite the  many  small  nationalities,  perhaps 
because  of  them,  Europe  was  practically  an 
unity,  fashioned,  expressed,  and  made  active 
through  diversity.  In  France,  however, 
perfection  was  most  closely  approached, 
and  national,  individual,  stimulating  as  they 
are,  the  Gothic  monuments  of  all  these 
peoples  never  quite  approached  Chartres, 
Bourges,  Coutances,  Amiens,  and  Rheims 
in  perfect  organism,  in  perfect  beauty,  and 
in  the  indissoluble  union  of  the  two.  In 
these  masterpieces  the  progress  of  develop- 
ment from  the  simple  to  the  complex,  from 
the  almost  rudimentary  norm  of  the  Athe- 
nian temple,  each  portion  of  which  was 
perfected  to  finality,  on  to  the  Catholic 
cathedral  of  the  thirteenth  century,  where 
the  norm  is  in  itself  complex  and  each  de- 
tail raised  almost  to  the  level  of  Hellenic 
perfection,  is  steady  and  unbroken,  and  at 
Rheims  we  could  see,  only  two  years  ago, 
the  triumph  of  final  achievement. 

Coutances   is   not  French   Gothic,   it   is 
Norman  Gothic,  just  as  the  same  art  in 
England  —  barring  Westminster  —  is  Nor- 
man by  descent.    There  is  a  great  difference 
[i47] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

in  this,  and  one  that  always  should  be  re- 
garded, for  it  marks  a  great  divergence  and 
lessens  the  contrast  so  often  drawn  between, 
for  example,  Lincoln  and  Bourges.  Cou- 
tances  has  the  might  and  majesty  of  the 
work  of  Lanfranc,  with  the  central  tower 
so  typically  Norman  and  English.  On  the 
other  hand  its  verticality  is  stupendous:  it 
soars  into  the  air  with  a  swiftness  and  clarity 
of  line  almost  without  equal.  The  French 
cathedral  does  not  do  this:  there  is  in  it 
nothing  ponderous,  nothing  earth-bound, 
but  it  seems  to  rise  with  a  certain  self- 
controlled  majesty,  expressing  only  its 
splendid  logic  and  its  magisterial  calm. 
Coutances  is  like  a  troop  of  lifting  spears, 
light,  strong,  exultant,  and  its  effect  comes 
from  conscious  design  in  form,  not  through 
wealth  of  fretted  ornament,  for  of  this  there 
is  little  enough.  As  the  chief  monument 
of  Norman  Gothic  it  is  a  church  that  well 
deserves  to  be  better  known  than  it  is. 

It  is  as  hard  to  speak  of  Rheims  as  of  the 
loved  and  newly  dead.  For  every  architect 
it  had  come  to  be  the  epitome  of  his  art, 
the  Parthenon  of  Christian  architecture. 
For  every  friend  'of  France,  every  devotee 
at  the  shrine  of  immortal  history,  it  stood 
[148] 


THE    MEDIAEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

as  a  radiant  apotheosis.  For  those  who  still 
hold  by  Christianity  it  was  a  holy  place, 
with  a  dim  yet  penetrating  sanctity  that 
silently  conquered  all  doubt,  all  denial,  all 
derision.  There  was  none  other  quite  like 
it;  not  St.  Peter's,  nor  Hagia  Sophia;  not 
even  Westminster.  The  insolence  of  heresy, 
the  brutishness  of  revolution,  the  smug  self- 
complacency  of  restoration  had  stripped  it 
of  its  altars,  its  shrines,  its  tombs  of  unnum- 
bered kings,  but  even  the  destroyers  had 
venerated  its  lofty  majesty  and  respected  its 
integrity,  while  the  wars  of  six  centuries 
had  swept  around  its  unscathed  walls,  im- 
potent for  evil  in  the  light  of  its  stainless 
glory. 

For  two  years  it  has  lain  under  the  fitful 
storming  of  shell  and  shrapnel,  doomed  to 
slow  death  because  it  is  the  crowning  sym- 
bol of  a  great  culture  that  is  an  offence  to 
modernism  in  arms,  and  of  a  spirit  in  man 
and  over  man  that  may  not  be  allowed  to 
exist  in  the  same  world  with  its  potent  nega- 
tion. The  glass  that  rivalled  Chartres  is 
splintered  in  starry  dust  on  the  blood-stained 
pavement  and  its  fragments  made  the  set- 
tings in  soldiers'  rings.  Its  vault  is  burst 
asunder  by  bombs,  its  interior  calcined  by 
[149] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

conflagration,  the  incredible  sculptures  of 
its  portals  blasted  and  burned  away.  Yet 
it  stands  in  its  infinite  majesty,  gaunt  and 
scathed  in  a  circle  of  ruin,  still  the  majestic 
fabric  of  a  great  people,  a  great  epoch,  a 
consummate  art. 

It  was  the  crowning  monument,  in  mate- 
rial form,  of  Christian  civilization;  so  per- 
fect in  all  its  parts  that  it  was  perhaps  too 
perfect,  as  being  more  than  man  should  be 
permitted  to  attain,  an  infringement  on  the 
creative  power  of  God.  Beyond  this  was 
nothing  greater,  and  in  Amiens,  which  is 
chronologically  but  a  few  years  younger,  we 
already  begin  to  feel  the  working  of  that 
pride  of  life  and  vainglory  of  conscious 
competence  that  forebodes  the  beginning  of 
the  decline. 

To  most  travellers,  I  suppose,  Amiens  is 
the  most  beautiful  cathedral  in  France,  the 
perfection  of  fully  developed  Gothic.  Cer- 
tainly its  towering  interior,  taller  in  pro- 
portion to  its  width  than  anything  yet  ac- 
complished, is  awe-inspiring;  its  sculptures 
quite  by  themselves  in  their  vivacity,  their 
masterly  design,  and  their  subtle  delicacy 
of  execution.  The  west  front,  wholly  with- 
out stylistic  consistency  and  dating  from 
[150] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

many  periods,  is  lyric  poetry  done  into 
stone.  There  is  no  other  Gothic  front 
quite  like  this  in  its  pictorial  composition, 
its  wealth  of  intricate  design  (as  rich 
as  the  masterpieces  of  the  Flamboyant 
period  without  their  lace-like  texture  and 
their  irrational  fantasticism),  its  marvellous 
carved  ornament  which  is  undeniably  the 
most  varied,  original,  and  exquisite  of  any 
church  in  the  world.  In  spite  of  this 
there  is  something  lacking,  or  rather  some- 
thing added  that  should  not  be  there.  Very 
hiddenly,  very  unwholesomely,  human 
pride  is  asserting  itself  above  the  solemn 
devotion  of  Chartres,  the  serene  Christian 
confidence  of  Rheims.  Logic  is  winning 
the  mastery,  structural  engineering  is  eating 
into  architectural  integrity.  Higher  and 
more  tenuous  the  slim  shafts  lift  themselves 
from  the  pavement:  in  the  marvellous 
chevet  stone  is  pared  away  until  the  thin 
masonry  is  like  a  perilous  scaffolding: 
every  foot  of  wall  between  buttresses  gives 
place  to  the  airy  tracery  of  great  windows, 
and  the  vault  itself  soars  in  the  air  as  though 
held  down  by  the  taut  pull  of  the  colonettes 
instead  of  resting  on  them  as  on  its  natu- 
ral supports.  Of  course  the  painted  glass 
[151] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

is  nearly  all  gone,  if  it  ever  existed,  and 
the  vast  interior,  whitened  by  lamentable 
restorations,  is  a  dizzy  blaze  of  intoler- 
able light.  Were  these  crystal  walls  glow- 
ing with  the  transcendental  splendour  of 
Chartres,  or  with  the  glory  that  was 
Rheims,  our  judgment  might  be  different, 
for  then  Amiens  would  be  the  fulfilment 
of  the  dream  of  its  daring  creators,  where 
now  it  is  little  more  than  the  white  ashes 
of  burnt  out  fires.  So  great  is  the  part 
played  in  Mediaeval  architecture  by  this 
art  of  glass,  created  then  out  of  nothing  to 
add  a  new  joy  to  life,  a  new  wonder  to  the 
body  of  universal  art.  No  church  where 
sacrilege  has  extinguished  this  flame  of  life 
—  and  they  are  the  vast  majority  in  every 
land  —  should  be  judged  as  it  stands  any 
more  than  you  would  venture  to  estimate 
the  value  of  the  Brahms  Requiem  from  an 
orchestral  performance  from  which  the 
voices  of  the  soloists  and  chorus  were  ex- 
cluded, or  the  Fifth  Symphony  without  the 
violins.  With  our  taste  hopelessly  debased 
by  the  catastrophic  products  of  glass-makers 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  we  naturally  can- 
not understand  the  part  played  of  old  by 
this  triumphant  art,  unless  we  have  seen  for 
[152] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

ourselves  the  miracle  of  Chartres  with  its 
glass  so  providentially  preserved. 

In  any  case,  however,  the  lurking  peril 
was  there ;  not  salient,  not  vociferous  enough 
to  injure  its  perfection,  not  sufficiently  visi- 
ble to  serve  even  as  a  warning,  but  the  next 
stage  was  the  chevet  of  Le  Mans,  and  the 
final  stage  was  Beauvais,  and  through  these 
we  can  trace  the  first  evidences  of  deca- 
dence back  to  Amiens,  still  serene  in  its 
perfect  mastery. 

I  have  left  myself  scant  space,  indeed  I 
have  left  no  space  at  all,  to  deal  with  the 
other  racial  and  national  expressions  of 
Mediaeval  culture  through  the  varied  ver- 
sions of  what  was  yet  one  definite  Gothic 
style.  This  is  unjust  to  Spain  and  Portugal, 
where  a  divergent  Gothic  showed  itself 
early  and  ended  at  last  in  the  fantastic  and 
riotous  fancies  of  Burgos  and  Poblet.  It  is 
unjust  to  western  Germany  and  Austria, 
where,  though  late,  a  Teutonic  version  of 
French  Gothic  produced  a  few  really  na- 
tional masterpieces.  It  is  unjust  to  Italy, 
for  though  the  true  Gothic,  such  as  the 
ruined  abbeys  of  Casamari  and  San  Gal- 
gano,  are  merely  Cistercian  importations 
from  Burgundy,  the  friars'  churches  of  the 
[153] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

sculptor  Arnolfo  not  Gothic  at  all  and  very 
ugly  at  that,  and  the  pictorial  fagades  of 
Orvieto  and  Siena  merely  delightful  essays 
in  arbitrary  design,  there  is  a  real  Mediaeval 
expression  in  the  unique  churches  of  Sicily, 
with  their  mingling  of  Byzantine,  Arab,  and 
Norman  genius,  and  in  the  developed  Lom- 
bard of  North  Italy  at  Pisa,  Lucca,  Prato, 
Pistoja.  It  is  doubly  unjust  to  England,  for 
there  we  find  a  school  of  undoubted  Gothic 
which  is  quite  unlike  that  of  France,  yet  in 
spirit  the  same.  The  divergence  is  very 
complete.  As  I  said  before,  English  Gothic 
inherits  directly  from  Normandy,  not  from 
France,  and  is  therefore  always  more 
static,  massive,  and  structurally  conserva- 
tive. Moreover  there  is  a  fundamental  dif- 
ference in  genus  due  to  the  same  difference 
in  the  people.  As  opposed  to  the  French 
with  their  clear  logic,  which  is  sometimes 
almost  cruel,  the  English  are  incorrigible 
sentimentalists,  always  thinking  things  are 
better  than  they  are,  and  that  they  can  easily 
make  them  better  still  by  impulsive  and 
almost  unpremeditated  action.  Apparently 
we,  ourselves,  inherit  directly  from  them 
and  are  therefore  hopelessly  addicted  to  the 
worship  of  abstract  ideals  which  do  not  exist 
[154] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

and  would  not  work  if  they  did,  while  our 
incorrigible  optimism  prevents  our  ever  see- 
ing a  danger  (if  it  is  clearly  indicated  for 
the  future),  or  of  recognizing  its  advent 
until  the  time  for  preventive  action  is  past 
and  nothing  is  possible  but  the  desperate 
struggle  for  life. 

So  in  England  we  find,  in  her  Mediaeval 
architecture,  a  curious  clinging  to  estab- 
lished precedents,  a  shrinking  from  novel- 
ties in  structural  development,  a  more  or 
less  complete  carelessness  of  logic,  a  doing 
of  things  because  they  like  them  that  way 
and  not  because  it  is  necessarily  the  reason- 
able thing  to  do.  And  yet,  combined  with 
this  is  always  a  curious  and  very  appealing 
struggle  toward  the  symbolical  expression 
of  things  almost  too  high  for  expression. 
As  the  Norman  abbeys  are  vaster,  more 
dramatic,  and  more  overpowering  than  their 
prototypes,  with  their  massive  construction, 
their  cavernous  portals,  their  giant  piers,  as 
at  Gloucester,  almost  Egyptian  in  their  pro- 
portions, so  with  Gothic,  when  it  became 
the  universal  mode  of  expression.  Vast 
towers  lift  themselves  at  the  west  and  over 
the  crossing;  lancet  windows  prolong  them- 
selves upward  to  improbable  heights;  new 
[i55] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

and  irrational  compositions  are  tried  as  in 
the  astonishing  west  portals  of  Peterbor- 
ough, while  the  plan  pulls  itself  out  to  in- 
ordinate lengths,  and  doubled  transepts  and 
great  chapels  prolong  the  awe-inspiring 
vistas,  and  add  space  beyond  space  to  the 
blue  mystery  of  nave  and  choir  and  aisles. 
It  is  all  very  appealing,  particularly  to  us 
who  are  of  the  same  blood  and  temper,  but 
it  offers  a  tempting  opportunity  to  the 
mechanistic  mind  that  thinks  only  in  terms 
of  logic,  law,  and  clean-cut  definitions. 

Of  course  it  is  true  that  we  must  judge 
English  Gothic  by  what  is  left,  and  this  not 
always  of  the  best.  What  Henry  VIII 
could  not  destroy  was  sacked  and  wrecked 
by  the  Puritan  reformers,  and  what  they 
left  the  nineteenth  century  pounced  upon 
as  prey  for  the  "  restorations "  of  Wyatt, 
Lord  Grimthorpe,  and  Sir  Gilbert  Scott. 
Salisbury  remains,  with  all  its  defects  upon 
its  head,  but  Guisborough  is  gone;  of  the 
great  northern  abbeys  only  fragments  exist, 
and  St.  Mary's  Abbey,  at  York,  which  must 
have  been  the  most  perfect  Gothic  in 
England,  after  having  stood  roofless  and 
crumbling  for  three  centuries,  yielded  in 
the  era  of  enlightenment,  which  is  to  say, 
[156] 


THE    MEDIEVAL    SYNTHESIS 

the  early  nineteenth  century,  to  the  cupid- 
ity of  commercialism,  and  was  pulled  down 
and  burned  into  lime. 

Some  faint  idea  of  the  ruthless  destruc- 
tion of  the  noblest  art  that  was  carried  on 
under  the  direction  of  the  "  Defender  of 
the  Faith "  may  be  gained  from  Abbot 
(now  Cardinal)  Gasquet's  "  Henry  VIII 
and  the  English  Monasteries,"  but  it  is  well 
to  have  in  mind  that  the  nineteenth  century 
was  even  more  ignorant  and  rapacious  than 
the  sixteenth,  though  its  devastations  were 
carried  on  with  less  violence,  albeit  with 
equal  effectiveness. 


[157] 


LECTURE  VI 

THE  DECADENCE  AND  THE 
NEW  PAGANISM 

I  HAVE  called  this  last  of  my  lectures 
"  The  Decadence  and  the  New  Paganism," 
but  the  title  is  incorrect  as  applied  to  all  that 
immediately  followed  the  crest  of  a  great 
art  as  it  manifested  itself  in  Amiens,  Lin- 
coln, and  Rheims.  For  a  long  time  to  come 
it  was  to  be  a  great  art,  gaining  at  one  place 
what  it  lost  at  another,  and  in  England  los- 
ing nothing,  but  proceeding  always  on  its 
serene  way  until  it  produced  the  first  truly 
national  style,  that  was  still  at  its  perfection 
when  suddenly  cut  off  by  the  Reformation. 
In  society,  however,  the  decadence  was  very 
real,  and  its  inception  almost  immediate. 
When,  in  1270,  St.  Louis,  "  the  very  perfect 
king  in  Christiantie,"  went  to  his  eternal 
reward,  the  climax  had  been  reached,  more 
man  could  not  achieve  than  already  had 
been  won,  and,  as  always  in  history,  the 
curve  began  to  decline. 
[158] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

Art  did  not  follow  this  swift  declension, 
for  it  never  does.  While  it  is  true  that  art 
is  engendered  only  by  the  power  of  a  great 
ardour  and  a  great  righteousness  in  society, 
the  impulse  lasts  long  after  the  initial  energy 
is  spent.  The  wave  that  first  shows  itself 
in  a  low,  long  swell  far  out  at  sea,  rising 
as  it  advances,  and  cresting  on  the  edge  of 
the  shingle,  to  burst,  fall,  and  disperse  in 
shallow  ripples,  only  to  be  sucked  back  into 
the  abysses  of  the  sea,  casts,  in  falling,  its 
wind-blown  foam  far  forward,  until  it 
touches  the  very  grasses  of  the  shore.  So 
with  each  epoch  of  civilization  and  its  art; 
the  curve  of  one  is  of  longer  radius,  and 
tangent  to  the  other,  continuing,  before  its 
inevitable  fall,  long  after  the  primal  im- 
pulse has  ceased  to  act.  This  is  why  we 
always  find  the  highest  achievements  of  any 
art  synchronizing  with  that  low  level  of 
ethics,  of  philosophy,  of  religion,  of  conduct 
that  follows  the  epochs  of  noblest  culture 
and  most  vivid  and  wholesome  life. 

After  St.  Louis  and  St.  Thomas,  after 
Rheims  and  Dante,  the  curve  was  bound  to 
decline.  Already  a  very  unpleasant  form 
of  heresy  had  raised  its  head  in  the  south 
of  France;  the  Crusades  had  degenerated 
[159] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

into  marauding  expeditions,  and  in  the  very 
first  years  of  the  fourteenth  century  the 
French  crown  had  seized  upon  the  Papacy, 
establishing  over  it  the  secular  control 
Hildebrand  had  died  to  avert.  "  The  exile 
at  Avignon  "  followed,  with  one  after  an- 
other of  the  French  agents  acting  as  pontiff, 
and  in  its  trail  came  the  "  Great  Schism  " ; 
a  full  century,  in  which  secular  control  of 
the  Church  demonstrated  all  the  loss  of 
spiritual  independence,  all  the  paralyzing 
of  the  power  of  the  Church  in  the  defence 
of  faith  and  morals,  that  is  its  inevitable 
corollary.  Abandoned  by  its  secular  and 
spiritual  sovereigns  Italy  lapsed  at  once  into 
anarchy  and  an  encroaching  barbarism:  in 
Germany  the  Empire  broke  down  and  a 
new  and  vicious  form  of  feudalism  took  its 
place:  the  Hundred  Years'  War  devastated 
France  and  debauched  the  moral  sense  of 
England,  while  the  Black  Death  swept 
Europe  like  a  pestilential  flood.  Rebellion 
broke  out  against  the  ordered  government 
of  the  European  states,  and  once  more  the 
waves  of  invasion  threatened  the  almost  un- 
defended frontiers,  this  time  in  the  shape 
of  Turks  and  Tartars.  The  Latin  Kingdom 
of  Jerusalem  fell,  the  fragments  of  the 
[160] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

Eastern  Empire  shrunk  smaller  and  closer 
under  the  endless  assaults  of  Bulgars  and 
Turks,  although  in  Spain  the  tide  had 
turned  and  Ferdinand  III  was  steadily 
crushing  back  the  Moslems  that  at  one  time 
had  threatened  all  Europe. 

It  was  a  time  of  terrible  choice,  of  criti- 
cal peril,  but  as  yet  the  day  was  not  neces- 
sarily lost.  A  Philip  Augustus,  an  Otto  III, 
an  Anselm,  a  Thomas  a  Becket,  a  Leo  IX, 
a  Hildebrand,  might  have  met  the  crisis 
and  theoretically  at  least  have  saved  civi- 
lization. Italy  alone  had  definitely  aposta- 
tized from  its  Mediaeval  ideals,  Germany 
and  France  were  but  in  the  first  stages  of 
infection,  while  England  was  as  yet  wholly 
immune  and  Spain  vigorous  with  strong 
new  life.  A  firm  hand  in  the  Papacy,  right- 
eous kings  in  France  and  Germany,  a  new 
Cluny  or  a  new  Citeaux,  might  have  saved 
the  day.  Instead  Philip  the  Fair  comes  to 
blight  all  St.  Louis  had  brought  into  flower; 
the  earlier  Hapsburgs  could  not  avert  the 
nemesis  of  Germanic  order  prepared  by  the 
last  of  the  Hohenstaufens.  The  Mendicant 
Orders,  in  spite  of  the  best  intentions  in 
the  world,  formed  but  dissolving  bulwarks 
against  a  tide  that  had  broken  helplessly 
[161] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

before  the  inviolable  ramparts  of  Benedic- 
tinism,  whatever  its  special  form  or  name. 
Inch  by  inch  the  virus  engendered  in  Italy 
during  the  time  of  its  abandonment  by  the 
Popes  crept  through  the  veins  of  Europe. 
Northward  it  advanced  without  stay  on  that 
progress  that  was  not  to  cease  until  at  last, 
two  hundred  years  later,  it  was  to  achieve 
during  the  tyranny  of  the  regents  of  Ed- 
ward VI  final  supremacy  over  England,  the 
last  stronghold  of  Christian  civilization. 

All  this  was  happening  darkly  under- 
neath, on  the  surface  was  a  brave  show 
of  culture  and  refinement.  Chivalry  was 
flaunting  its  splendid  pageantry  from  sea  to 
sea,  and  almost  every  year  was  born  some 
child  who  later  was  to  be  the  voicing  of  a 
great  civilization  only  the  dregs  of  which 
remained  to  him.  Nearly  all  the  great 
painters  of  Christendom  were  born  in  that 
century  that  reached  from  the  beginning  of 
the  "  Great  Schism "  to  the  election  of 
the  Borgia  —  Alexander  VI.  With  them 
came  the  Blessed  Jeanne  d'Arc,  Savonarola, 
Erasmus,  Sir  Thomas  More,  Bayard,  St. 
Ignatius  Loyola,  St.  Philip  Neri ;  but  simul- 
taneously those  whose  destiny  it  was  to  play 
each  his  part  in  bringing  a  great  epoch  to 
[162] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

an  end  in  ignorance,  anarchy,  and  apostasy: 
Machiavelli,  Luther,  Cranmer,  Thomas 
Cromwell,  Henry  VIII,  and  the  spawn  of 
the  house  of  Borgia. 

It  was  a  field  of  Armageddon;  the  armies 
were  drawing  together,  all  the  hosts  of 
Heaven  waited  expectant,  and  in  the  year 
1453  the  great  battle  began.  Constantinople 
fell  before  the  devouring  Turks,  and  over 
Italy  poured  the  flood  of  decadent  philos- 
ophy, evil  morals,  and  false  learning  that 
had  festered  there  during  the  last  years  of 
Byzantine  corruption.  It  came  in  specious 
and  engaging  guise:  the  spirit  of  the  early 
Renaissance  (which  was  really  Christian 
and  beneficent  in  so  many  ways)  seized  upon 
it  with  avidity,  wolfed  it  down,  good  and 
evil  alike,  and  was  transmuted  into  a  thing 
profligate,  atheist,  anarchical.  Nicholas  V 
and  Pius  II  tried  too  late  to  stem  the  tide 
and  turn  it  into  the  channel  of  compromise. 
They  were  followed  by  an  Alexander  VI, 
a  Julius  II,  and  a  Leo  X.  Savonarola,  fight- 
ing almost  single-handed  against  the  hell- 
let-loose  in  Italy,  went  to  his  martyrdom. 
Cardinal  Cusa,  St.  John  Capistran,  and 
Erasmus  were  swept  before  the  whirlwind 
unleashed  by  Luther  and  Zwingli.  Calvin, 
[163] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

Beza,  and  the  Huguenots,  acting  in  bloody 
concert  with  Marie  de  Medicis  and  a  Ca- 
tholicism now  almost  wholly  debauched  by 
Italy,  turned  France  into  a  shambles.  The 
temporal  victory  remained  with  the  Catho- 
lics, but  it  was  empty  of  righteousness  and, 
unchecked,  the  Renaissance  went  on  its 
course.  At  last  the  cliffs  of  England,  that 
had  so  long  withstood  the  rising  tide, 
yielded  to  its  assault,  and  Henry,  Crom- 
well, and  Cranmer  rose  to  triumph  over  Sir 
Thomas  More,  Bishop  Fisher,  and  the  mar- 
tyrs of  monasticism.  The  exile  at  Avignon 
had  borne  its  fruit  and  Catholic  civilization 
had  come  to  an  end.  What  followed  was 
new:  whether  for  good  or  ill  is  not  to  be 
considered  now,  but  it  was  in  no  sense 
Catholic,  and,  whether  for  good  or  ill,  the 
Middle  Ages  were  Catholic,  first,  last,  and 
always. 

There  was  little  enough  of  all  this  in  the 
architecture  that  followed  immediately  on 
Amiens  and  Rheims.  Beyond  their  organic 
perfection  there  is  no  further  field  for 
development,  except  along  the  lines  of  en- 
gineering, and  this  becomes  ever  more  bril- 
liant and  more  daring.  The  chevet  of  Le 
Mans  is  a  degree  beyond  that  of  Amiens 
[164] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

in  its  delicacy,  its  complicated  articulation, 
and  its  beauty;  a  magical  web  of  stone. 
Beauvais  passes  the  perilous  edge,  and  as 
even  today,  in  the  heyday  of  efficiency  and 
consummate  engineering,  the  bridges  of 
able  experts  will  fall  now  and  then,  so  in 
France  experience  rose  superior  to  logic 
and  mechanism  and  made  them  of  no  avail. 
Beauvais  was  taller  than  Amiens,  more  at- 
tenuated than  Le  Mans,  and  twelve  years 
after  it  was  finished  it  crumbled  and  fell 
into  its  own  nave.  Rebuilt,  with  humiliat- 
ingly  necessary  reinforcements,  it  acquired 
new  transepts  that  were  finished  in  1550, 
and  a  central  spire  nearly  450  feet  high. 
Again  ruin  overtook  it;  the  incredible  spire 
fell  and  was  never  again  rebuilt,  while  the 
nave  had  never  even  been  begun;  so  the 
cathedral  remains  a  monument  of  the  deca- 
dence; truncated,  patched  up,  semi-ruinous, 
as  Paris  stands  for  the  crescent  years  of  Me- 
diaevalism,  Rheims  for  its  culmination. 

Beauvais  is  sheer  beauty,  unalloyed,  and 
therein  lay  its  weakness.  Its  choir,  as  you 
first  see  it,  towering  above  the  huddled 
houses  below,  is  so  marvellous  that  you 
catch  your  breath  in  awe  and  admiration. 
It  is  not  wire-drawn  and  frail  like  Le  Mans, 
[165] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

but  composed  of  solid  and  almost  unorna- 
mented  buttresses,  lifting  dizzily  into  the 
air,  and  thin  lace-like  arcs  springing  one 
above  the  other  toward  the  crystal  walls  of 
the  clerestory.  No  finer  conception  exists, 
and  no  more  brilliant  and  poetic  design. 
As  for  the  transepts,  which  were  not  begun 
until  the  first  years  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
they  are  of  the  last  Gothic  of  France  at  its 
best,  and  this  best  was  good  indeed  if  you 
consider  it  as  pure  decoration.  Where  this 
new  style,  called  Flamboyant,  came  from, 
and  why,  is  one  of  the  architectural  mys- 
teries. The  balanced  art  of  Amiens  con- 
tinued along  established  lines  for  a  genera- 
tion, then  froze  slowly  into  a  respectable 
formalism  that  ceased  suddenly  when  the 
civilization  that  had  created  it  perished  for 
the  time  being  in  war  and  desolation.  For 
almost  a  century  art  of  every  kind  was  in- 
operative, and  when  it  began  again  it  was 
on  sudden  and  novel  and,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed, very  captivating  lines. 

When  St.  Louis  died,  he  left  France  rich, 
powerful,  happy.  He  himself  had  become 
the  most  dominant  prince  in  Christendom, 
and  there  seemed  no  reason  why  his  people 
should  not  enjoy  in  peace,  for  generations, 
[166] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

the  fruit  of  his  noble  and  knightly  labours. 
Less  than  seventy  years  after  his  death,  and 
just  a  century  after  the  consecration  of 
Rheims,  the  "  Hundred  Years'  War  "  broke 
out,  and  under  the  unrighteous  scourging 
of  the  English  king,  France  was  wrecked, 
pillaged,  devastated,  and  reduced  to  the 
lowest  levels  of  misery  and  humiliation. 
All  the  north  and  east  were  swept  by  a 
whirlwind  of  destruction  almost  like  that 
which  has  come  on  Flanders  and  Cham- 
pagne during  these  latter  years,  only  then 
the  cathedrals  and  abbeys  and  churches 
stood  inviolate,  rising  in  the  purity  of  their 
new  white  stone,  alone  in  the  abomination 
of  desolation. 

By  the  year  1270  architecture  had  become 
largely  stereotyped  along  fine  but  mechan- 
ical lines,  St.  Ouen,  Rouen,  serving  as  a 
good  example,  and  no  great  original  works 
were  attempted  except  Limoges,  Narbonne, 
and  Alby.  With  the  English  war  work 
stopped  altogether,  and  yet,  after  a  space 
of  sixty  years,  and  at  the  very  moment  of 
the  deepest  humiliation  of  France,  sud- 
denly, somehow,  came  the  flush  of  a  new 
art,  as  though  to  signalize  the  birth  of  the 
girl  who  was  to  listen,  alone  amongst  the 
[167] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

people  of  her  race,  to  the  mystical  Voices, 
and,  at  the  head  of  a  regenerated  army,  lead 
her  king  to  his  crowning  in  Rheims,  and 
redeem  France.  The  Blessed  Joan  of  Arc 
was  born  in  1411,  and  seven  years  later 
Notre  Dame  de  PEpine  was  begun,  the  first 
considerable  example  of  the  wonderful  new 
art  that  seemed  to  grow  out  of  death  and 
corruption,  as  though  men  were  sick  from 
inordinate  misery  and  turned  to  beauty,  as 
they  were  turning  back  to  religion,  to  find 
there  their  only  consolation.  Caudebec  fol- 
lowed in  1426,  St.  Maclou  in  1432,  the  tran- 
septs of  Beauvais  in  1500  and  the  church 
at  Brou  in  1505.  It  was  a  century  of  the 
most  exuberant  worship  of  beauty:  hardly 
a  church  in  France  lacks  some  embellish- 
ment of  this  period,  for  the  coming  of  peace 
in  1456  found  a  chastened  people,  who  set 
to  work  to  express  their  new  liberty  and 
their  gratitude  in  the  old  and  honourable 
way. 

Some  say  the  artistic  stimulus  came  from 
Flanders,  some  even  from  England,  which 
in  this  instance  deserved  so  little  either  of 
gratitude  or  of  imitation,  but  it  seems  to 
me  that  there  was  material  enough  already 
in  France.  What  was  done  was  the  isola- 
[168] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

tion  of  the  decorative  and  artistic  forms 
from  their  structural  context,  and  the  trans- 
forming of  these  into  a  magnificent  and 
ingenious  scheme  of  ornamentation.  So 
considered  it  offers  little  opportunity  for 
adverse  criticism.  It  is  a  wonderful  com- 
plex of  exquisite  lines,  supple,  and  flowing: 
of  crisp,  close-set  carving,  of  buttresses  that 
have  been  transformed  into  fretted  spires, 
of  spires  that  become  lace-like  canopies,  of 
canopies  that  toss  themselves  like  spray  into 
the  air.  In  spite  of  its  riotous  abundance, 
its  whimsical  fancy,  its  overwrought  senti- 
ment, it  is  always  in  good  taste  in  France, 
and  usually  in  Flanders,  though  in  Spain 
and  Portugal  it  rapidly  became  turgid  and 
ugly,  while  in  Germany  it  ended  by  being 
ridiculous. 

From  the  first  it  grew  steadily  better  in 
France,  and  often  reached  heights  of  posi- 
tive greatness,  as  in  the  Tour  de  Beurre  of 
Rouen,  and  in  Malines  cathedral.  Notre 
Dame  at  Louviers,  St.  Maclou  at  Rouen, 
and  Alengon  are  toys,  but  St.  Germain  at 
Amiens  is  a  consistent  and  admirable  little 
church,  as  are  many  others  of  the  same  kind 
throughout  the  country.  In  almost  every 
case,  however,  the  beauty  is  external :  within 
[169] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

the  work  is  dry,  thin,  often  ugly  in  propor- 
tion, which  is  evidence  of  the  great  change 
that  has  taken  place  in  motive.  Secularism 
is  dominant,  wealth  and  luxury  increasing, 
and  for  the  first  time  outside  show  takes 
precedence  of  the  worship  of  God.  Beauty 
is  now  sought  for  its  own  sake,  not  as  divine 
service,  and  the  end  is  not  far  away.  "  Art 
for  art's  sake  "  will  serve  for  a  time  and 
produce  the  show  of  aesthetic  competence, 
but  it  is  impermanent  as  a  motive  force  and 
its  ultimate  degeneration  and  extinction  are 
not  to  be  escaped. 

In  England  the  last  phase  of  Christian 
architecture  was  the  exact  antithesis  of  that 
on  the  Continent.  We  already  have  seen 
that  the  English  Gothic  was  based  on  Nor- 
man rather  than  on  French  foundations  and 
therefore  static  and  conservative;  curiously 
enough  it  is  emotional,  as  opposed  to  the 
clear  logic,  the  nervous  energy  of  develop- 
ment, and  the  intellectualism  of  France.  It 
passed  through  many  phases  from  the  Nor- 
man William  of  Sens  to  the  ultra-English 
William  of  Wykeham,  striking  out  concep- 
tions of  wonderful  beauty,  such  as  Netley 
Abbey  and  St.  Mary's,  York,  the  eastern 
transepts  of  Durham  and  Fountains,  Lin- 
[170] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

coin  choir  and  presbytery,  Guisborough, 
Exeter,  Beverly.  It  devised  those  wide, 
low  compositions  that  are  the  charm  of 
English  cathedral  landscape;  it  created 
towers  of  singular  grace  and  nobility,  and 
west  fronts  of  varied  and  novel  majesty. 
It  invented  and  perfected  the  vaulted  chap- 
ter house  and  made  the  abbey  and  the  coun- 
try church  models  of  almost  faultless  design. 
It  turned  the  simple  and  little-varied  pro- 
files of  mouldings,  and  the  somewhat  stereo- 
typed pier  and  arch  sections,  of  France  and 
Normandy,  into  living  forms  of  infinite 
vitality  and  variety,  and  in  its  carved  deco- 
ration it  has  no  rival.  It  is  true  Gothic  of 
a  very  personal  and  national  character,  but 
it  is  not  the  greatest  Gothic  because  it  is 
undeveloped  in  its  structural  organism. 

At  the  very  moment  when  French  Gothic 
had  hardened  into  a  series  of  formulae,  that 
is  to  say,  the  first  quarter  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  English  Gothic  took  up  an  entirely 
new  line  of  development  that  was  to  give  it 
a  fresh  but  evanescent  glory.  It  began  as 
a  scheme  of  decoration,  with  the  remodel- 
ling of  the  choirs  of  Gloucester  and  Canter- 
bury, and  of  the  Norman  Winchester  from 
end  to  end.  All  this  work  is  practically 
[171] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

contemporaneous  and  runs  from  about  1350 
to  1400.  It  is  quite  unstructural  and  con- 
sists chiefly  in  a  sheathing  of  thin  stone, 
where  all  the  lines  are  predominantly  ver- 
tical, very  numerous,  and  delicate  to  a  de- 
gree in  their  profiles  and  sections.  The 
revolt  from  the  massive  forms  and  strong, 
rich  lights  and  shadows  of  the  earlier  work 
is  startling.  New  forms  of  arch  are  de- 
vised —  three-centred,  four-centred,  ellip- 
tical, segmental  —  and  the  vaulting,  which 
already  had  been  marvellously  enriched,  as 
at  Exeter,  with  many  intermediate  ribs,  took 
on  new  shapes,  on  curious  circular  or  curved 
section  lines,  until  it  came  to  be  known  as 
fan  vaulting.  Geometrical  tracery  gave 
place  to  many  vertical  bars,  with  cross  mul- 
lions,  and  ingenious  new  line-combinations 
for  the  heads,  while  ornament  swerved 
from  the  exquisitely  naturalistic  forms  of 
the  thirteenth  century  and  became  conven- 
tionalized and  heraldic. 

If  we  were  to  judge  this  nascent  style 
from  its  earliest  efforts  we  should  be  forced 
to  condemn  it  as  a  piece  of  unstructural 
artificiality,  but  no  sooner  had  it  made  itself 
fashionable,  which  it  did  at  once  and  most 
inordinately,  than  a  curious  thing  happened. 
[172] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

Beginning  as  a  scheme  of  surface  decora- 
tion, it  proceeded  to  change  its  whole  nature 
and  become  logically  structural,  and  so,  at 
last,  England  actually  acquired  a  form  of 
architectural  expression  which  was  not  only 
quite  original,  but  more  consistent,  as  an 
organic  scheme,  than  anything  that  had  gone 
before.  At  once  the  old  and  almost  cum- 
bersome bulk  of  the  Gothicized  Norman 
gave  place  to  the  nervous  and  completely 
articulated  system  of  Perpendicular.  Col- 
umns became  slim  and  widely  spaced,  walls 
were  thinned  to  curtains  and  then  to  mere 
veils  of  glass  in  a  slender  scaffolding  of 
stone  mullions.  The  angular  and  ugly  criss- 
crossing of  irrational  ribs  that  had  defaced 
the  vaulting  of  the  latest  Decorated  and  the 
earliest  Perpendicular  work,  disappeared, 
and  fan  vaulting,  delicately  panelled,  and 
split  into  thin  severies  by  sheaves  of  slim 
ribs,  took  its  place.  The  rich  and  sonor- 
ous glass  of  the  thirteenth  century  gave  place 
to  pale  and  opalescent  compositions  of  the 
most  delicate  yet  vivid  colour,  and  this 
bright  adornment  spread  itself  over  shafts 
and  walls  and  vault  until  the  whole  interior 
became  a  jewel-box  of  colour  and  beaten 
gold. 

[i73] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

It  was  the  gayest  of  all  gay  styles,  flaunt- 
ing all  the  glittering  pageantry  of  chivalry, 
and  expressing  in  perfect  form  the  luxury 
and  the  ease  and  the  pride  of  life  that  just 
preceded  the  Reformation.  A  great  style, 
though  narrow  in  its  scope  and  secular 
rather  than  religious,  it  imposed  itself  on 
England  to  such  a  degree  that  it  became  the 
only  possible  style,  and  it  produced  not 
alone  such  positive  works  of  genius  as  the 
cloister  of  Gloucester  and  its  Lady  Chapel, 
the  vaults  of  Oxford  Cathedral  and  Sher- 
borne,  King's  College  Chapel  and  that  of 
Henry  VII  at  Westminster,  but  as  well  a 
bewildering  galaxy  of  town  and  country 
churches.  England  was  growing  rich  and 
full  of  plenty:  her  people  were  still  free 
citizens,  there  was  as  yet  no  proletariat  and 
no  capitalism,  the  monasteries  had  not  been 
suppressed,  and  in  spite  of  the  Wars  of  the 
Roses  and  the  Black  Death,  there  was 
greater  wealth,  more  justly  distributed,  than 
anywhere  else  in  the  world.  It  was  "  Mer- 
rie  England  "  in  truth,  and  the  general  con- 
tent and  prosperity  showed  themselves  in 
an  incredible  amount  of  building,  both  re- 
ligious and  secular,  and  the  embellishing  of 
the  old  sanctuaries  with  a  fabulous  wealth 
[i74] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

of  altars,  chantries,  screens,  tombs,  chapels, 
porches,  sculptures,  and  decorations.  It  is 
a  pity  so  little  of  all  this  exquisite  embel- 
lishment has  remained.  Within  a  century 
the  major  part  was  beaten  into  dust,  melted 
into  bullion,  or  sold  for  building-stones  and 
old  metal  by  the  dull-witted  and  rapacious 
servants  of  Henry  VIII;  and  later  came 
"  the  tiger's  cub  "  Edward  VI,  Elizabeth, 
the  Puritans,  and  the  nineteenth  century. 
We  are  thankful  for  what  we  have,  but  its 
strange  beauty  makes  us  hopelessly  covetous 
of  the  inestimable  treasures  we  have  lost. 

Toward  the  end  architecture  itself  hard- 
ened a  little  and  lost  its  spontaneous  gaiety 
and  its  delicate  f ancifulness,  but  in  domestic 
building  and  in  the  country  churches  it  con- 
tinued to  the  very  end.  Abbot  Huby's  fine 
tower  at  Fountains  had  only  just  been  fin- 
ished when  the  vast  abbey  was  handed  over 
to  pillage  and  destruction,  and  the  same 
is  true  of  the  lost  Edgar  Chapel  at  Glaston- 
bury.  Prior  Moon's  great  tower  at  Bolton 
had  only  risen  a  third  of  its  height  at  the 
Suppression,  and  I  myself  have  found  at 
Fairford  the  patterns  on  the  unfinished 
stone,  stencilled  there  by  some  sixteenth  cen- 
tury apprentice  in  preparation  for  the  mas- 
[i75] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

ter  carver  who  was  to  come  the  next  day  to 
begin  his  carving.  He  did  not  come,  nor 
ever  will,  though  four  centuries  have  passed 
since  word  came  that  the  spoilers  were  on 
their  way  and  that  no  more  might  be  done 
for  the  glory  of  God  or  for  sheer  joy  in  the 
doing  of  beautiful  things. 

Gothic  art  did  not  die  of  inanition.  When 
the  Reformation  broke  it  had  before  it  great 
possibilities.  Already  it  had  begun  to  in- 
corporate the  delicate  craftsmanship  of 
Italian  sculptors,  full  of  the  new  wine  of 
the  Early  Renaissance,  and  had  the  world 
not  been  convulsed  by  a  destructive  revolu- 
tion yet  another  page  might  have  been 
added  to  the  annals  of  Christian  art,  which 
did  not  die,  but  was  incontinently  slain, 
that  a  new  era  and  a  new  art  might  come 
to  birth. 

After  the  anarchy  and  the  awful  destruc- 
tion of  the  Reformation  period  had  some- 
what abated,  and  the  new  era  begun,  the  old 
art  was  gone  and  something  entirely  new 
had  taken  its  place.  This  is  true  at  least 
of  official  art,  the  art  of  the  new  class 
of  professional  artists,  of  the  constructive 
agencies  in  Church  and  State,  of  the  new 
"  upper  classes  "  who  were  now  completely 
[176] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

differentiated  from  the  (also  new)  prole- 
tariat. Amongst  the  peasantry  and  the 
country  folk  and  the  minor  lords  and  squires 
the  old  fashion  lingered  on,  and  for  a  cen- 
tury or  more  the  old  ways  held  for  the 
country  churches  (though  few  new  ones 
were  needed  now) ,  the  cottages,  and  manors, 
and  minor  chateaux.  It  was  a  declining  in- 
fluence, however;  little  by  little  the  peas- 
antry lost  their  freedom,  the  squires  and 
lords  their  independence,  the  priests  their 
piety,  the  bishops  and  canons  their  intelli- 
gence, and  by  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  last  vestige  of  Mediaeval  art  had 
disappeared.  Will  you  have  patience  with 
me  while  I  try  to  trace  the  circumstances 
of  this  great  revolution? 

When  the  spirit  of  the  Middle  Ages 
finally  established  itself  throughout  western 
Europe,  the  last  traces  of  paganism  had  dis- 
appeared from  religion,  from  philosophy, 
and  from  the  social  organism.  The  spirit 
of  antiquity  was  that  of  obedience  to  nature 
and  the  worship  of  reason,  with  force  as 
the  ultima  ratio.  Its  religion  was  the  deifi- 
cation of  the  attributes  of  nature,  from  lust 
to  power;  its  philosophy,  the  establishing  of 
standards  and  the  apprehension  of  absolute 
[i77] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

truth  through  process  of  reason;  the  foun- 
dation of  its  society,  slavery  and  the  ar- 
bitrament of  physical  force.  This  spirit  of 
antiquity  which  we  call  paganism  had  con- 
tinued for  five  centuries  after  the  Christian 
Era,  side  by  side  with  the  new  faith,  and 
though  it  had  yielded  here  and  there  in  re- 
ligion and  philosophy,  it  maintained  itself 
almost  unhampered  in  the  organization  of 
society,  which  was  still  definitely  founded 
on  slavery.  When  the  Empire  broke  down 
in  ruin,  these  partially  submerged  qualities 
of  paganism  regained  control  of  the  West. 
The  first  protest  was  on  the  instant,  and  at 
the  hands  of  St.  Benedict,  who  led  the  re- 
volt of  those  who  were  compelled  to  with- 
draw from  an  intolerable  world,  under  the 
novel  banner  of  Poverty,  Chastity,  Obedi- 
ence, and  Labour,  the  four  antitheses  to  all 
that  paganism  had  held  fundamental.  For 
five  centuries,  with  most  indifferent  or 
ephemeral  results,  Christianity  strove  to 
establish  its  own  principles  over  those  of 
paganism,  and  for  the  two  following  cen- 
turies it  waged  a  warfare  so  successful  that 
in  the  end  these  principles  stood  supreme, 
if  not  in  universal  action,  at  least  in  theoret- 
ical acceptance.  The  spirit  of  antiquity  had 
[178] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

declared  that  there  was  nothing  higher  than 
physical  and  human  nature,  except  human 
reason,  and  that  by  the  following  of  nature 
and  reason  men  should  become  as  gods. 
Christianity  had  preached  a  human  nature 
corrupted  by  sin,  but  through  the  Incarna- 
tion and  the  Atonement  glorified  anew  and 
subject  to  salvation  through  the  grace  of 
God,  and  explicitly  by  means  of  the  or- 
dained Sacraments  of  the  Church.  The  two 
conceptions  were  built  up  on  opposed  bases 
and  were  different  in  toto.  The  Christian 
conception  won,  and  for  nearly  five  cen- 
turies determined  the  nature  of  religion, 
created  an  entirely  new  philosophy,  and  or- 
ganized a  society  that  had  no  prototype  as 
it  has  had  as  yet  no  successor  of  like  nature. 
The  five  elements  entering  into  the 
make-up  of  Medievalism  were:  Northern 
blood,  monasticism,  the  Catholic  Faith, 
Sacramental  philosophy,  and  the  Christian 
commonwealth.  It  would  be  manifestly  im- 
possible to  consider,  even  superficially,  all 
these  contributing  causes,  though  all  were 
operative  in  the  production  of  the  art  we 
have  been  considering.  While,  however, 
the  first  four  created  the  content  of  art  and 
determined  its  indwelling  spirit,  it  was  the 
[179] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

last  that  was  chiefly  instrumental  in  fixing 
the  forms.  Its  complete  destruction,  within 
a  brief  space  of  years,  had  more  than  all 
else  to  do  with  the  corresponding  transfor- 
mation of  art  from  its  Christian  and  Mediae- 
val nature  to  its  pagan  and  Renaissance  (or 
modern)  form.  For  this  reason,  and  be- 
cause the  Christian  commonwealth  is  little 
understood  and  generally  misrepresented,  I 
must  speak  of  it,  though  as  briefly  as 
possible. 

During  the  reconstruction  of  Europe 
after  the  fall  of  Rome,  slavery  tended, 
though  by  almost  imperceptible  degrees,  to 
disappear.  With  the  opening  of  the  true 
Middle  Ages  its  doom  was  sealed,  and  the 
fully  developed  Mediaeval  society  founded 
itself  on  an  entirely  new  basis.  Slavery 
(domestic,  industrial,  and  economic)  had 
been  the  universal  law  of  antiquity,  a  small 
group  of  individuals  holding  and  control- 
ling the  land  (that  is  to  say,  the  chief  means 
of  production),  together  with  all  other 
forms  of  wealth  and  wealth-producing 
power.  The  vast  majority  of  men  existed 
by  sufferance,  without  any  personal  means 
of  production,  and  were  maintained  and 
permitted  to  breed  simply  because  without 
[180] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

their  enforced  labour  the  potential  wealth 
in  land,  or  other  property,  could  not  be 
made  operative.  Wives  and  children  were 
chattels  over  whom  the  man  frequently  had 
the  power  of  life  and  death,  while  over  the 
labour,  the  persons,  and  the  lives  of  the 
slaves  the  lord  had  almost  unrestricted 
authority  to  do  with  them  as  he  liked. 

Under  the  Mediaeval  system  the  old 
Latin  villa,  or  tract  of  land  under  the  ab- 
solute ownership  of  a  dominus,  or  lord, 
who  worked  it  through  his  corps  of  slaves, 
had,  through  the  process  of  feudalism,  and 
by  the  ninth  century,  been  wholly  trans- 
formed. The  estate  was  now  divided  into 
three  portions,  one  the  private  property  of 
the  lord,  one  reserved  to  the  tenants  who 
practically  though  not  as  yet  legally  owned 
it,  the  third  held  for  the  common  use  of 
lord  and  yeomanry.  By  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury custom  had  determined  the  nature  of 
the  rent  the  peasant  should  pay  his  lord  for 
use  of  the  land,  and  what  the  lord  was  bound 
to  render  him  in  return,  and  by  the  four- 
teenth century  peasant  ownership  was  prac- 
tically unquestioned.  He  could  not  be 
evicted  from  his  land;  it  descended  from 
father  to  son,  and  the  rent  paid  either  in 
[181] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

kind  or  in  money  or  in  service  was  a  small 
portion  of  the  total  possible  income.  This 
formed  the  tax  the  peasant  paid;  it  was 
definite  and  limited,  and  no  more  in  pro- 
portion to  his  income  than  the  "  State, 
county,  town,  and  school  tax  "  of  today,  let 
alone  the  question  of  indirect  taxation  of 
the  innumerable  kinds  now  in  vogue.  To 
put  the  case  in  a  few  words,  the  man  on 
the  land  controlled  the  means  of  produc- 
tion, whereas  both  before  Medievalism  and 
after  the  means  of  production  were  and  are 
in  the  hands  of  a  small  group  of  landlords 
or  capitalists. 

Simultaneously  trade  and  industry  were 
developing  along  similar  lines  through  the 
guilds.  These  were  voluntary  societies, 
covering  all  possible  lines  of  activity,  partly 
co-operative,  but  made  up  of  private  in- 
dividuals owning  and  controlling  their  own 
means  of  production.  Each  body  was  self- 
governing,  and  it  looked  out  for  the  educa- 
tion of  the  children  of  its  members,  gave 
aid  and  nursing  in  sickness,  and  burial  at 
death.  Above  all  it  encouraged  emulation 
amongst  its  members,  but  checked  compe- 
tition, guarded  their  rights  and  the  scale  of 
their  wages,  upheld  the  standards  of  work- 
[182] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

manship,  and  jealously  controlled  the  di- 
vision of  profits  to  prevent  a  great  share 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  few  to  the 
impoverishment  of  the  many. 

During  the  three  great  centuries  of  the 
central  Middle  Ages,  there  was  neither 
slavery  nor  a  division  of  society  between  a 
small  group  of  capitalists  (or  owners  of 
the  means  of  production),  on  the  one  hand, 
and  a  vast  proletariat  made  up  of  men  dis- 
possessed of  the  means  of  production  on  the 
other.  Between  the  lord  and  the  yeoman 
the  difference  was  less  of  kind  than  of  de- 
gree, while  the  priesthood,  monasticism,  and 
chivalry  gave  free  and  wide  opportunities 
for  ability  to  rise,  as  by  a  natural  process, 
from  one  social  scale  to  another,  until  it 
was  no  uncommon  thing  for  a  yeoman's  son 
to  become,  on  the  one  hand,  page,  squire, 
knight,  baron,  count;  on  the  other,  novice, 
monk,  abbot,  bishop,  cardinal,  and  even 
Pope.  If  democracy  consists,  as  it  does,  in 
abolition  of  privilege,  and  equal  opportun- 
ity for  all,  then  the  Middle  Ages  form  the 
only  democracy  of  record,  and  if  Catholi- 
cism had  produced  nothing  else  it  deserves 
eternal  honour  for  making  this  possible. 

Through  the  guilds  the  same  "  carrier e 
[183] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

ouverte  aux  talents  "  was  made  available, 
and  ability  alone  determined  whether  the 
apprentice  should  remain  such,  or  become 
the  builder  of  Amiens  or  Rheims.  Through 
the  zealous  guarding  of  standards,  work- 
manship and  artistic  quality  progressed 
steadily,  and  through  co-operation  a  score 
of  groups  of  independent  artists  and  crafts- 
men worked  in  unison  on  the  same  building, 
with  the  same  end  in  view,  and  with  no 
quarrelling  over  precedence  or  the  inva- 
sion of  each  other's  territory.  Is  it  any 
wonder  that  during  the  epoch  of  this  only 
Christian  commonwealth  art  should  have 
flourished,  and  that  Christian  architecture 
should  have  been  what  it  was? 

Let  us  now  consider  the  great  revolu- 
tion whereby  the  Middle  Ages  gave  way  to 
the  Renaissance,  Gothic  to  neo-classic,  and 
Christianity  to  a  revived  paganism. 

In  the  year  1250,  the  central  moment  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
was  dissolved.  It  was  re-established  in  Ger- 
many alone,  and  Italy  lost  all  effective  and 
centralized  government.  From  that  mo- 
ment anarchy  began  and  came  to  its  full 
estate  as  soon  as  the  Papacy,  the  last  centre 
of  order,  was  removed  to  Avignon.  No 
[184] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

description  could  do  justice  to  the  carni- 
val of  profligacy  and  crime  that  reigned 
throughout  Italy.  Unscrupulous  adventur- 
ers seized  on  power  by  force  and  fraud, 
extinguishing  civil  and  moral  rights  and 
abandoning  themselves  to  a  career  of 
treason,  murder,  treachery,  poisoning,  and 
almost  inconceivable  debauchery.  All 
ethical  standards  were  broken  down;  re- 
ligion was  derided,  the  authority  of  the 
Church  in  faith  and  morals  was  scorned 
and  disregarded,  and  a  complete  return 
made  to  the  spirit  of  antiquity,  in  that  na- 
ture—  human  nature  and  reason  —  became 
the  arbiter  of  conduct.  All  the  hard-won 
liberties  of  the  individual,  the  associations, 
and  the  communes  disappeared  in  a  pan- 
demonium of  tyranny.  When  this  new 
spirit  clothed  itself  with  wealth,  luxury, 
magnificence,  art,  and  the  patronage  of  let- 
ters, that  it  might  hide  its  indelible  blood- 
stains and  extinguish  by  its  glory  all 
memory  of  its  inconceivable  crimes,  Italy 
had  become,  as  of  old,  a  centre  of  omnipo- 
tent lords  holding  all  power,  all  the  means 
of  production,  with  a  vast  proletariat,  dis- 
possessed, impoverished,  and  reduced  to 
practical  slavery. 

[185] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

The  return  to  paganism  in  society  and 
morals  may  have  initiated,  or  it  may  simply 
have  synchronized  with,  a  corresponding 
return  to  pagan  ideals  in  art.  In  any  case 
the  return  was  made,  and  in  the  midst  of 
murder  and  outrage  all  Italy  turned  to  the 
classical  remains  of  letters,  philosophy,  and 
all  the  arts.  The  powerful  vital  force  en- 
gendered by  Medievalism,  at  that  very 
moment  beginning  there  fully  to  express 
itself,  was  diverted  into  new  channels,  and 
an  unexampled  artistic  splendour  shone 
over  the  ruin  of  Christian  society  and  the 
inauguration  of  the  new  paganism;  pal- 
liating its  crimes  and  almost  justifying  its 
pretensions. 

From  Italy  this  enthralling  new  spirit 
extended  itself  little  by  little  over  all  Eu- 
rope. It  came,  as  it  could,  in  fascinating 
form ;  and  on  the  strength  of  its  art,  its  new 
learning,  its  lavish  splendour,  found  ready 
acceptance.  At  once,  however,  its  poison 
began  to  work,  —  in  society,  in  philosophy, 
and  in  religion.  By  this  time  the  Church 
itself,  almost  wholly  in  Italy,  increasingly 
in  France  and  Germany,  had  made  its  sur- 
render, and  the  power  the  first  of  the  new 
pagans  fought  furiously  because  of  its  stand 
[186] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

for  Christian  morals  and  Christian  faith, 
was  now  their  fellow  and  accessory.  The 
monasteries  held  out  longest  against  the  in- 
sanity of  fundamental  humanism,  some  of 
them  successfully,  but  their  influence  be- 
came less  and  less,  and  finally  almost 
negligible. 

The  pagan  revolution  in  Italy  resulted 
in  the  temporary  abandonment  of  Christian 
faith  and  morals,  and  in  the  acquisition  of 
all  the  wealth  and  the  means  of  production 
by  a  group  of  omnipotent  assassins.  In 
France,  while  religion  still  held  a  formal 
supremacy,  its  effectiveness  was  appallingly 
diminished,  morals  degenerated,  though  less 
fatally  than  in  the  south,  but  the  social 
revolution  was  quite  as  complete  and  re- 
sulted through  the  Wars  of  Religion  in  an 
equal  extinguishing  of  Mediaeval  liberty 
and  the  mingling  in  the  crown  of  all  power, 
all  authority,  and  an  enormous  area  of  ter- 
ritory from  which  the  new  proletariat  had 
been  dispossessed. 

In  England  the  Renaissance  came  slowly, 
so  far  as  its  aesthetic  and  literary  amenities 
are  concerned,  and  its  religious  and  philo- 
sophical corollaries  as  well.  Curiously 
enough,  however,  the  economic  revolution 
[187] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

made  its  way  more  rapidly.  In  the  early 
fifteenth  century  the  great  mass  of  English- 
men owned  the  land  on  which  they  lived 
and  laboured,  and  all  other  means  of  pro- 
duction as  well.  Wealth  was  distributed 
with  a  close  approach  to  evenness,  and  was 
more  abundant  than  in  any  other  part  of 
Europe.  The  greatest  landlord  was  the 
Church,  holding  something  over  a  quarter 
of  the  land,  but  the  taxes  (or  rents)  were 
low,  collected  with  unbusinesslike  leniency, 
and  largely  established  by  immemorial  cus- 
tom and  therefore  subject  to  little  change. 
By  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century 
the  group  of  landholders  had  begun  to 
increase  their  holdings,  while  the  small 
owners  were  diminishing  in  number.  There 
was  little  as  yet  that  was  alarming  in  the 
change,  which  might  easily  have  been  ar- 
rested, but  at  this  critical  moment  occurred 
the  greatest  economic  disaster  England  has 
ever  known,  the  suppression  of  the  monas- 
teries, and  the  giving  over  of  their  vast  lands 
to  the  cabal  of  new  and  needy  and  greedy 
nobles  who  had  been  called  (and  who  had 
paid)  to  take  the  place  of  the  men  of  old 
honour  who  had  fallen  during  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses.  A  fourth  of  the  wealth- 
[188] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

producing  land  of  England  was  at  a  blow 
handed  over  to  a  very  sorry  group  of  knaves 
and  sycophants,  mostly  of  inferior  blood: 
tenants  by  tens  of  thousands  were  dispos- 
sessed and  driven  out  to  starve  or  turn  out- 
law, and  in  ten  years  England  had  ceased 
to  be  a  Commonwealth,  and  had  become,  as 
Italy  and  France,  a  nation  made  up  of  a 
land-owning  and  wealth-controlling  minor- 
ity on  the  one  hand,  a  proletarian  and  help- 
less and  poverty-stricken  majority  on  the 
other. 

In  a  century  the  whole  social  fabric  of 
Europe  had  been  revolutionized,  and  the 
Mediaeval  system  of  an  approximate  equal- 
ity in  landholding,  in  possession  of  the 
means  of  production,  and  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  (and  therefore  in  opportu- 
nity), had  given  place  to  the  Capitalistic 
State,  consisting  of  an  absolute  and  ever- 
increasing  inequality  in  all  these  elements 
that  form  the  only  foundation  for  a  just  and 
righteous  commonwealth. 

Meanwhile  another  series  of  catastrophies 
had  overtaken  Europe  in  the  shape  of  cer- 
tain great  wars  which  marked  the  rise  and 
progress  of  the  Renaissance  and  Reforma- 
tion, wars  compared  with  which  the  mili- 
[189] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

tary  expeditions  of  Medievalism  were  mere 
skirmishes.  Their  results  were  equally  un- 
like, and  of  a  most  fatal  nature.  During 
Medievalism  the  nobility  in  every  Chris- 
tian country  of  Europe  was  of  pure  north- 
ern stock,  tracing  its  lineage  back  to  the 
hardy  lands  around  the  Baltic.  So  was  the 
great  mass  of  the  people,  except  in  Spain, 
southern  France,  and  the  lower  half  of 
Italy,  but  underneath  was  always  a  sub- 
stratum of  the  round-headed  Alpine  race 
of  which  the  present  southern  Slavs  are  a 
part,  with,  in  the  south,  a  debased  mixture 
of  many  servile  strains.  The  Crusades  and 
the  wars  of  Medievalism  had  cut  into  the 
noble  and  peasant  classes  of  northern  blood 
in  about  equal  proportions,  but  now  some- 
thing very  different  was  to  occur,  and  this 
was  a  series  of  wide  and  long-drawn-out 
conflicts  in  which  the  men  of  the  purest 
blood  and  best  traditions  and  highest  men- 
tality were  practically  exterminated. 

The  Wars  of  the  Roses,  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  in  Germany,  the  Wars  of  Religion  in 
France  and  Flanders,  and,  later,  the  reli- 
gious persecutions  in  England,  with  the 
wars  of  the  Commonwealth,  struck  pri- 
marily at  the  class  of  nobles,  knights,  and 
[190] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

gentlemen,  and  secondarily  at  the  yeomanry 
of  northern  blood,  so  planing  away  all  the 
wonderful  superstructure  of  culture,  char- 
acter, and  chivalry,  and  releasing  the  low- 
est strata  of  all,  which  came  swiftly  to  the 
top,  and,  with  no  traditions  of  culture, 
character,  or  chivalry,  assumed  to  fill  the 
depleted  ranks. 

Of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany 
and  its  results  on  the  race  and  society, 
Madison  Grant  says: 

"  It  destroyed  an  entire  generation,  tak- 
ing each  year  for  thirty  years  the  finest 
manhood  of  the  nation.  Two-thirds  of  the 
population  of  Germany  was  destroyed  in 
some  states,  such  as  Bohemia;  while  out  of 
500,000  people  in  Wurttemberg  there  were 
only  48,000  left  at  the  end  of  the  war.  .  .  . 
From  that  time  on  the  purely  Teutonic  race 
in  Germany  has  been  largely  replaced  by 
the  Alpine  type  in  the  south  and  the  Wend- 
ish  and  Polish  types  in  the  east.  .  .  .  Out 
of  70,000,000  inhabitants  of  the  German 
Empire  only  9,000,000  are  purely  Teutonic. 
.  .  .  In  addition  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
virtually  destroyed  the  land-owning  yeo- 
manry and  lesser  gentry  formerly  found  in 
Germany  as  numerously  as  in  France  or  in 
[191] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

England.  .  .  .  This  section  of  the  popula- 
tion was  largely  exterminated,  and  the  class 
of  gentlemen  practically  vanishes  from  Ger- 
man history  from  that  time  on.  When  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  was  over  there  remained 
in  Germany  nothing  except  the  brutalized 
peasantry,  and  the  high  nobility  which 
turned  from  the  toils  of  endless  warfare  to 
mimic  on  a  small  scale  the  Court  of  Ver- 
sailles. Today  the  ghastly  rarity  in  the 
German  armies  of  chivalry  and  generosity 
toward  women  and  of  knightly  protection 
and  courtesy  toward  the  prisoners  and 
wounded  can  be  largely  attributed  to  this 
annihilation  of  the  gentle  class.  The  Ger- 
mans of  today,  whether  they  live  on  the 
farms  or  in  the  cities,  are  for  the  most  part 
descendants  of  the  peasants  who  survived, 
not  of  the  brilliant  knights  and  hardy  foot 
soldiers  who  fell  in  that  mighty  conflict." 

The  result  of  the  wars  of  the  fifteenth, 
the  sixteenth,  and  the  seventeenth  centuries 
in  France  and  England  was  less  terribly 
comprehensive,  but  the  same  in  nature.  All 
the  fine  flower  of  Mediaeval  culture  was 
swept  away;  debased  and  adulterated  stock 
came  to  the  surface  and  ruthlessly  gathered 
the  power  and  the  means  of  production  into 
[192] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

its  own  hands.  The  hold  of  religion  was 
gone,  the  monasteries  suppressed,  the  cus- 
toms and  relationships  of  feudal  society 
superseded  by  force  and  by  class  legislation, 
and  at  the  very  moment  of  complete  success 
came  the  great  industrial  discoveries  of  coal 
and  iron  as  potentialities  of  wealth,  whose 
infinite  possibilities  had  been  unlocked  by 
the  solving  of  the  problem  of  steam  as 
manageable  energy.  One  invention  fol- 
lowed another,  with  endless  new  discov- 
eries, each  of  which  might  be  given  an  in- 
dustrial application.  The  proletariat,  made 
out  of  the  free  citizens  of  a  dead  Mediaeval- 
ism,  could  not  use  them,  but  the  new  class 
of  capitalists  made  out  of  the  up  springing 
dregs  of  a  dead  civilization,  could  and  did, 
now  that  all  restraining  influences  had  been 
removed,  and  since  they  were  the  holders 
of  all  wealth  and  all  wealth-producing 
agencies.  The  result  was  Industrial  Civi- 
lization, of  which  Alfred  Russell  Wal- 
lace could  write,  in  the  year  before  the 
War: 

"  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  our  whole 

system   of   society   is    rotten    from   top    to 

bottom,  and  the  Social  Environment  as  a 

whole,  in  relation  to  our  possibilities  and 

[193] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

our  claims,  is  the  worst  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen." 

I  have  called  this,  my  last  lecture,  "  The 
Decadence  and  the  New  Paganism."  I 
have  apologized  for  using  the  word  "  deca- 
dence "  as  applied  to  the  latest  architecture 
of  Medievalism,  but  I  have  no  apologies 
to  make  for  applying  the  words  "  new 
paganism  "  to  the  scheme  of  life  that  took 
the  place  of  that  of  the  great  five  centuries 
of  Christian  civilization.  Do  not  misun- 
derstand me:  I  do  not  claim  for  Mediae- 
val society  any  degree  of  perfection.  The 
most  constructive  student  of  the  time  Amer- 
ica has  yet  produced,  Henry  Osborne  Tay- 
lor, has  written  of  what  he  calls  "  the 
spotted  actuality."  It  was  "  spotted,"  min- 
gled of  good  and  evil,  as  are  all  peoples, 
all  generations,  all  men,  and  as  these  must 
be  mingled  of  good  and  evil  for  all  time. 
I  do  declare  the  thesis,  however,  that  it  was 
a  time  when  the  principles  of  Christianity 
were  the  dominant  and  controlling  force, 
and  when  the  "  spotted  actuality  "  contained 
a. greater  proportion  of  good  than  has  been 
recorded  in  history  either  before  or  since. 

The  new  paganism  was  in  religion,  in 
philosophy,  in  sociology,  in  economics,  in 
[  194] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

ethics,  and  in  art,  a  definite  and  categorical 
return  to  the  old  paganism.  It  is  argued, 
and  may  be  debatable,  that  such  a  return 
was  an  evidence  of  human  evolution  toward 
something  higher  and  more  wholesome  than 
Christianity  could  afford.  It  may  be  so,  but 
the  eternal  antithesis  must  be  recognized 
and  men  must  now  admit  that  society  can 
no  longer  continue  half  Christian  and  half 
pagan.  With  more  than  exemplary  patience 
Christianity  has  surrendered  one  position 
after  another  in  the  vain  effort  to  affect  a 
compromise  and  maintain  a  working  basis 
with  the  universal  force  that  re-entered  the 
world  just  five  centuries  ago.  The  result 
is  now  for  us  to  see  in  the  elapsed  years  of 
the  twentieth  century,  made  clear  and  un- 
mistakable by  the  events  that  have  cast  the 
red  light  of  their  apocalyptic  revelation 
over  the  delusive  present,  ever  since  the 
first  day  of  August  in  the  year  of  Our 
Lord,  One  Thousand  Nine  Hundred  and 
Fourteen. 

There  remain  for  us  only  a  few  words  as 
to  the  workings  of  this  new  paganism  in  the 
architecture  that  in  seven  centuries  had 
grown  from  the  hesitating  efforts  of  Charle- 
magne's clumsy  builders  to  the  awful  maj- 
[195] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

esty  of  Chartres,  the  kindly  and  human  and 
beautiful  Lincoln,  the  serene  consummation 
of  Rheims.  It  was  at  first  a  stimulus,  for 
the  high  ardour  of  Medievalism  was  still 
there,  and  it  used  the  delicacy  and  the  craft 
and  the  pleasant  fancy  of  the  earliest  Renais- 
sance to  give  a  new  charm  to  its  own  im- 
aginings. Then  came  the  division  of  society 
between  capitalist  and  proletarian,  the  con- 
centration of  wealth  and  the  means  to 
wealth  in  a  few  hands,  the  dissolution  of 
the  guilds,  the  suppression  of  the  monas- 
teries, the  restoration  of  tyranny  and  abso- 
lutism in  government,  the  moral  apostasy 
of  the  Church.  Intellectualism  took  the 
place  of  conscience  and  Revelation;  indi- 
vidualism destroyed  liberty  and  co-opera- 
tion, and  all  the  mainsprings  of  communal 
art  were  dried  up. 

For  the  art  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  a 
communal  art,  and  in  this  may  lie  the  secret 
of  its  character.  It  grew  from  the  spon- 
taneous demand  of  a  whole  people  under 
the  influence  of  a  great  and  vital  impulse. 
No  beneficent  millionaire,  no  Brahmin  of 
superior  taste,  no  august  and  official  acad- 
emy, no  suddenly  enriched  middle  class 
with  social  ambitions  gave  the  call  or  dic- 
[196] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

tated  the  forms  or  the  fashions  they  would 
patronize.  There  were  no  architects  as 
such,  and  no  contractors;  no  vast  and  effi- 
cient building  organizations  on  the  one 
hand,  or  industrious  walking  delegates  on 
the  other.  No  man  stood  by  himself  on  a 
pinnacle  of  superiority  and  by  competitive 
bids  chose  the  cheapest  workmen,  dictated 
to  them  what  they  should  do,  and,  subject 
to  the  veto  of  the  labour  unions,  saw  that 
they  did  it.  Mediaeval  architecture  was  the 
work  of  free,  proud,  independent  artists  and 
craftsmen,  working  together,  each  in  his  own 
sphere,  and  all  to  the  common  end  of  pro- 
ducing something  better  and  more  beauti- 
ful than  had  ever  been  seen  before. 

The  moment  the  Early  Renaissance  be- 
came the  Pagan  Renaissance,  all  this  was 
changed.  The  new  art  was  the  appanage 
of  the  specialist:  the  people  as  a  whole  did 
not  like  it  or  want  it,  the  craftsmen  knew 
nothing  about  it  and  cared  less.  From  its 
very  nature  it  excluded  personal  artistry 
and  individual  initiative,  and  nothing  re- 
mained, if  the  work  was  to  be  accomplished, 
but  the  invention  of  the  architect.  He  was 
invented  out  of  the  amateurs  and  dilettanti 
of  the  literary  circles  of  Italy  and  began 
[197] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

his  career  of  designing,  controlling,  direct- 
ing every  branch  of  an  art  that  in  its  great 
days  was  not  the  result  of  an  aesthetic  fiat, 
but  of  the  co-operation  of  as  many  artists 
as  there  were  arts,  as  many  craftsmen  as 
there  were  crafts.  The  guilds  dissolved, 
craftsmanship  died  of  disuse,  classical  de- 
tails, carefully  drawn  for  day  labourers  to 
cut,  worked  their  way  fantastically  into  the 
lingering  Gothic  compositions,  crowded 
them  out,  and  established  themselves  as  the 
exclusive  claimants  to  the  admiration  of  the 
elect. 

And  still  the  old  inheritance  of  good  taste 
and  the  love  of  beauty  and  joy  in  craftsman- 
ship lingered  here  and  there:  the  real  and 
fine  principles  of  the  old  classic  architec- 
ture worked  through  the  silly  admiration 
of  superficial  forms  and  built  up  a  new  style 
that  often  reached  levels  of  great  majesty 
and  distinguished  beauty.  But  it  was  now 
a  new  style,  and  could  only  be  this  in  com- 
mon honesty,  for  the  life  and  thought  to 
which  it  gave  expression  were  equally 
new.  It  is  inconceivable  that  the  art  of  the 
Middle  Ages  could  have  continued  to  voice 
the  Renaissance,  the  Reformation,  and  the 
Revolution,  and  to  give  outward  shape  to 
[198] 


DECADENCE  AND  NEW  PAGANISM 

the  spirit  of  the  Capitalistic  and  Industrial 
State  which  is  the  synthesis  of  these,  the 
solar  plexus  of  modernism.  Gothic  art  had 
done  its  work;  it  had  given  immortal  form 
to  Christian  civilization,  and  it  passed  with 
the  splendid  thing  it  had  so  faithfully 
served.  It  can  never  come  back,  at  least 
with  the  life  and  power  that  were  its  own. 
Haltingly  restored  it  may  serve  well  as  the 
visible  protest  of  the  Church  and  the  uni- 
versity against  their  eternal  enemy,  the  new 
paganism.  Whether  its  spirit  comes  back, 
to  express,  in  some  new  series  of  forms,  the 
righteous  and  eternal  forces  that  made  the 
Mediaeval  man  and  the  Mediaeval  State, 
depends  on  the  answer  the  world  gives  to 
the  great  question  propounded  by  the  War. 
We  have  had  our  chance  and  have  made 
of  it  —  what  we  have  made.  Modern  civi- 
lization has  now  reached  that  impasse  from 
which  the  way  of  escape  is  apparently  by 
way  of  war.  Revolution  follows  close;  it 
may  be  that  the  war  itself  will  merge  in 
revolution  with  no  military  termination  that 
finds  its  position  in  a  treaty  of  peace,  while 
the  inevitable  process  of  overturning  the 
entire  economic  and  industrial  basis  of  so- 
ciety supersedes  a  war  of  armed  forces  and 
[199] 


THE    SUBSTANCE    OF    GOTHIC 

brings  in  the  more  terrible  contest  of  classes 
and  of  systems.  No  prediction  is  plausible 
except  that,  whether  now  or  later,  the  revo- 
lution is  not  to  be  escaped  and  that  in  the 
end  all  we  have  known  as  modern  civiliza- 
tion will  have  passed  and  a  new  era  have 
come  into  being. 

The  new  paganism  has  had  its  era  of  five 
centuries  and  no  definite  epoch  has  ever 
lasted  beyond  this  period.  The  end  is  very 
close  at  hand;  whether  the  next  step  is  into 
five  centuries  of  Dark  Ages  or  into  a  new 
era  of  five  centuries  of  a  restored  Chris- 
tian commonwealth,  depends  on  us.  The 
choice  is  free;  we  are  not  constrained  in  our 
decision,  but  on  that  decision  hangs  the  hap- 
piness or  misery,  the  honour  or  the  shame, 
the  righteousness  or  the  apostasy  of  the 
world.  Men  rejected  Christian  civiliza- 
tion for  the  new  paganism  once,  when  the 
choice  was  offered  them.  Will  they  now 
in  turn  reject  their  former  choice  that  the 
Christian  commonwealth  may  be  restored? 


[200] 


The  ^Mythology  of^All  traces 

AN  ILLUSTRATED  WORK 
OF  RESEARCH 

Editor 
LOUIS  HERBERT  GRAY,  A.M.,  Ph.D. 

Late  Associate  Editor  of  Hastings' s  Encyclopedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics 

Consulting  Editor 
GEORGE  FOOT  MOORE,  A.M.,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Harvard  University 

I  CLASSICAL     .      .     William  Sherwood  Fox,  Ph.D.,  Princeton  University 

II  TEUTONIC     .      .     Axel  Olrik,  Ph.D.,  University  of  Copenhagen 
(CELTIC     .      .      .     Canon  John  A.  MacCulloch,  D.D.,  Bridge  of  Allan, 

III  j  Scotland 

(  SLAVIC     .      .      .    Jan  Machal,   Ph.D.,   Bohemian  University,  Prague 

IV  FINNO-UGRIC,         Uno  Holmberg,  Ph.D.,  University  of  Finland,  Hel- 

SIBERIAN        .         singfors 

V  SEMITIC.      .      .     R.  Campbell  Thompson,  M.  A.,  F.S.  A.,  F.R.G.S., 

Oxford,  England 

HNDIAN    ...     A.    Berriedale   Keith,    D.C.L.,    D.Litt.,  Edinburgh 
.    J  University 

I  IRANIAN  .      .      .     Albert  J.    Carnoy,    Ph.D.,   Litt.  D.,   University  of 
V  Louvain 

(  ARMENIAN   .      .     Mardiros    Ananikian,    B.D.,     Kennedy    School    of 
VII  }  Missions,  Hartford 

(  AFRICAN       .      .     Alice  Werner,  L.L.A.    (St.  Andrews)}    School  of 

Oriental  Studies,  London 

CHINESE  .     .      .     U.  Hattori,  Litt.D., University  of  Tokyo, Tokyojapan 
JAPANESE       .     .     Masaharu  Anesaki,   Litt.D.,   University  of  Tokyo, 
Tokyo,  Japan 

IX  OCEANIC       .      .     Roland  Burrage  Dixon,  Ph.D.,   Harvard  University 

X  NORTH  AMERICAN  Hartley  Burr  Alexander,  Ph.D.,  University  of  Nebr. 

XI  AMERICAN  (Latin)  Hartley  Burr  Alexander,  Ph.D.,  University  of  Nebr. 
Xj,   (  EGYPT     .     .      .    W.  Max  Miiller,  Ph.D.,  University  of  Pennsylvania 

|  INDO-CHINESE    .     Sir  (James)  George  Scott,  K.C.I.E.,  London 
XIII      INDEX       .     .      .     Louis  Herbert  Gray,  A.M.,  Ph.D. 

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